X, 


FROM   THE   LIBRARY   OF 
REV.    LOUIS    FITZGERALD    BENSON.   D.  D. 

BEQUEATHED   BY   HIM   TO 

THE   LIBRARY  OF 

PRINCETON  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


) 


PUKITANIS^!^5:roFPRw^^ 

^APR  23  1932 


A  CHURCHMAN'S  DEFENCE  AGAINST  ITS 
ASPERSIONS, 


BY 


AN  APPEAL  TO  ITS  OWN  HISTORY, 


Tender  stomachs  that  cannot  endure  milk,  but  can  very  well  digest  iron." 

Jeremy  Taylor^s  Works,  vi.  cccxxxv. 

"  Laud  was  justified  by  the  men  whom  he  had  wronged." 

BancrofVs  United  States,  i.  451. 


yy 


By  THOMAS  W.  COIT,  D.D., 

KHCTOB   OF  TRINITY  CHURCH,   NEW-BOCHELLl!,  N.  T.,   AND  A.  MEMBER  OF   TH] 
NKW-TORK:  HISTORICAIi  300IETT, 


NEW-YORK : 

D.  APPLETON   &  CO.,  200  BROADWAY. 

PHILADELPHIA : 

GEORGE    S.    APPLETON, 

No.  148  Chesnut-st. 

MDCCCXLV. 


Ehtzred,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1845,  by 

THOMAS  W.  COIT, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  for  the  Southern  District  of  New- York. 


J.  F.  Trow  &  Co.,  pr.,  33  Ann-street. 


'  They  tell  us,  that  on  th.e  lilglieat  of  the 
Capsian  raountains  in  Spain,  there  is  a 
lake,  whereinto  if  you  thro-w  a  stone, 
there  presently  ascends  a  smoke,  which 
forms  a  dense  cloud,  from  -whence  issues 
a  tempest  of  rain,  hail,  and  horrid  thun- 
der-claps, for  a  good  quarter  of  an  hour. 
Our  Church  History  ■wiH  he  like  a  stone 
cast  into  that  lake,  for  the  furious  tempest 
which  it  will  raise  among  some,  whose 
ecclesiastical  dignities  have  set  them, 
as  on  the  top  of  Spanish  mountains." — 
Mather's  Magnalia,  i.  35,  edit.  1820. 


"  Milton  was  a  Puritan." 

Leonard  Bacon^s  Hist,  Disc.  p.  36. 

Behold,  then,  a  Puritan's  picture  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  of  Divines  ! — 

"  Setting  sail  to  all  winds,  that  might  blow  gain  into  their  covetous  bosoms." 
"They  taught  compulsion  without  conviction,  which  not  long  before  they  com- 
plained of  as  executed  unchristianly,  against  themselves." 

"  And  well  did  their  disciples  manifest  themselves  to  be  no  better  principled  than 
their  teachers,  trusted  with  committeeships  and  other  gainful  offices,  upon  their 
commendations  for  zealous,  (and  as  they  sticked  not  to  term  them,)  godly  men  ;  but 
executing  their  places  like  children  of  the  devil,  unfaithfully,  unjustly,  unmercifully, 
and  where  not  corruptly,  stupidly.  So  that  between  them  the  teachers,  and  these 
the  disciples,  there  hath  not  been  a  more  ignominious  and  mortal  wound  to  faith,  to 
piety,  to  the  work  of  reformation,  nor  more  cause  of  blaspheming  given  to  the  enemies  of 
Ood  and  truth,  since  the  first  preaching  of  reformation.^' 

Milton's  Prose  Works,  in  one  vol.  Lond.  1838,  p.  503. 

N.  B.  An  intelligent  reader  will  not  be  surprised  to  learn,  that  the  Puritans  have 
succeeded  in  suppressing  the  above  passages,  with  a  number  more  like  them,  in  most 
of  the  editions  of  Milton.     See  note  to  the  edition  quoted,  p.  502. 


1* 


PREFACE. 

In  the  autumn  of  1843,  I  received,  from  several  of 
the  bishops  arid  a  large  number  of  the  clergy,  a  letter 
relative  to  certain  communications  made  by  me  to  "  The 
Churchman,"  during  the  year  1835,  concerning  the  his- 
tory of  the  Puritans,  and  their  harsh  and  unwearied  cavils 
against  Episcopalians.  They  expressed  an  earnest  de- 
sire that  those  letters  should  be  revised,  and  published  in 
a  permanent  form  ;  giving  it  as  their  decided  opinion, 
that  "  the  cause  of  truth  and  justice"  required  the  labor 
at  my  hands.  It  was  not  the  first  nor  the  twentieth 
time,  probably,  that  I  had  been  approached  upon  the 
subject — a  subject  which  the  recollection  of  abuse, 
("  rain,  hail,  and  horrid  thunder-claps,")  poured  upon 
me  without  measure,  determined  me  never  to  resume  on 
my  individual  responsibility.  But  it  was  the  first  time 
that  my  brethren  in  the  ministry  seemed  willing,  by  giv- 
ing me  their  signatures,  to  share  with  me  the  responsibil- 
ity of  publishing  disagreeable  facts.  Accordingly,  I  felt 
it  to  be  a  duty  to  go  forward  to  my  task,  and  made  some 
preparation  for  it  without  delay.  But  another  work, 
which  the  Church  was  pleased  to  ask  of  me,  interfered, 
(the  editing  of  a  Standard  Prayer  Book,)  and  it  was  not 
until  this  last  winter,  that  I  could  devote  myself  to  labors, 
which  it  was  my  intention  to  have  begun   a  year  sooner. 


viii  PREFACE. 

Nor  was  I  able  to  complete  those  labors,  as  soon  as  was 
expected  of  me.  The  original  letters  of  1835  were  less 
used,  than  it  was  presumed  they  would  be,  the  work 
swelled  under  my  hand,  and  has  become,  a  large  portion 
of  it,  entirely  new. 

I  was  the  more  willing,  perhaps,  that  it  should  be 
mainly  new,  as  the  temper  of  it,  in  its  first  form,  was  so 
much  complained  of.  Probably,  many  will  think  it 
sharp  enough  now ;  but  they  may  be  assured  it  is  easier, 
vastly  easier,  to  be  sharp  than  to  be  otherwise,  in  reviewing 
the  sharpest  and  most  unflagging  of  all  fault-finders — a 
full-blooded  Puritan.  Such  an  one  seems  never  so 
much  at  home,  as  when  he  is  whetting  his  knife  or  dissect- 
ing ;  and  to  contemplate  him  disarmed  requires  serious 
effort.  The  candid  among  my  brethren  will  therefore 
give  me  credit  for  moderation,  rather  than  tax  me  with 
severity.  As  to  ''  those  without,"  I  must,  of  course,  ex- 
pect no  quarter,  for  rousing  facts  from  a  sleep,  which 
they  fain  hoped  to  make  eternal.  So  I  must  look  to 
posterity  for  justice,  and  bide  my  time. 

It  was  necessary,  probably,  that  some  one  should 
bring  these  facts  into  open  view  ;  and  if  I  am  to  be  vic- 
timized for  thus  doing,  be  it  so.  My  facts  will  not  be 
extinguished,  if  I  myself  am  rhetorically  crucified. 

N^on  omnis  ?noj'iar  ;  multaque  pars  mei 
Vitabit  Lihitinam. 

I  close  all  I  have  to  say  in  this  connexion,  with  a  refer- 
ence to  a  remark  of  the  late  Dr.  Dwight  of  Yale  College. 
In  his  Letters  on  New  England,  to  put  an  end  to  the 
complaints  of  foreigners  about  persecutions  inflicted  by 
Puritans,  he  says,  ''  An   Englishman,   certainly,  must,  if 


PREFACE.  ix 

he  look  into  the  ecclesiastical  annals  of  his  own  country, 
be  forever  silent  on  the  subject."  (Travels,  i.  pp.  163, 
164.)  If  this  logic  is  good,  then  when  a  Puritan  looks 
into  the  ecclesiastical  annals  of  his  predecessors,  he  must 
be  as  silent  also.  Dr.  Dwight  has  settled  this  point  from 
his  presidential  chair,  (a  throne  if  it  were  in  England,) 
and  the  criminations  of  Plymouth  Rock  orators  are  at  an 
end,  "  forever." 

I  have  but  a  word  more  to  offer,  and  that  respects 
the  execution  of  my  work.  The  nature  of  the  argument 
(one  in  its  aim,  but  numerous  in  its  applications)  required 
me  to  go  over  the  same  ground,  again  and  again.  If, 
then,  sentiments  or  authorities  are  occasionally  repeated, 
it  is  hoped  an  excuse  will  be  found  for  me,  in  the  necessity 
of  the  case — in  the  importance  of  helping  dull  memories 
by  iterations — and  in  the  example  of  Puritan  orators, 
etc.,  who  have  repeated  the  same  things,  systematically, 
for  some  two  hundred  years. 

New  Rochelle,  N.  Y., 
July  9,  1845. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


Letter  I.,  p.  13. 

General  sketch  of  the  subjects  embraced  in  these  Letters.  The  mo- 
tives which  prompted  them,  and  the  plan  pursued. 

Letter  IL,  p.  25. 
Origin  and  aim  of  Puritanism  in  England. 

Letter  IIL,  p.  40. 
The  temper  of  Puritanism  in  England,  with  its  treatment  there. 

Letter  IV.,  p.  63. 
Expatriation  of  the  Puritans.     Was  "  a  purely  religious  cause"  its 
object  ? 

Letter  V.,  p.  79. 
Review  of  some  apologies  for  the  Puritans,  offered  by  their  advocates. 

Letter  VI.,  p.  104. 
Review  of  the  reasons  for  Puritan  expatriation,  assigned  in  N.  Mor- 
ton's "  New  England's  Memorial." 

Letter  VII.,  p.  130. 
Early  history  of  Puritanism  in  New  England.     The  patents  from  the 
Virginia  and  Plymouth  companies,  Massachusetts  charters,  etc. 

Letter  VIII.,  p.  153. 

Professions  of  the  Puritans  towards  the  Church  of  England.  Their 
rejection  of  the  ordinations  of  that  Church.  Reordinations  of  Episcopal 
clergymen.     Lay  ordinations,  etc. 


xii  CONTENTS. 

Letter  IX.,  p.  174. 
Treatment  of  early  Episcopal  settlers  by  the  Puritans.      William 
Blackstone — the  Browns — Bright — Morell — Vassall — petitioners  of  1646. 

Letter  X.,  p.  194. 
New  England  in  the  days  of  the  Commonwealth.     Importance   of 
dates  to  illustrate  Laud's  conduct.     Cromwell  tries  to  check  New  Eng- 
land.     Treatment  of  Churchmen  by  the  Puritans,   from  the  days  of 
Charles  II.  and  onward. 

Letter  XL,  p.  214. 
Puritan  church  Establishment.     Fines,  etc.,  under  this  Establishment. 
Laws  against   Holy-Days.      Contempt  of  Puritan  ministers  punished. 
Richard  Gibson.     Gov.  Andross  in  a  Puritan  meeting-house.     Puritan- 
ism less  republican  than  is  supposed. 

Letter  XII.,  p.  238. 
Influence  of  the  Puritan  ministers  in  both  Church  and  State.     Ad- 
ministrations of  Gov.  Winthrop  and  Gov.  Endicott. 

Letter  XIIL,  p.  260. 
Puritanic  efforts  to  defeat  an  American  Episcopate,  and  to  thwart 
Episcopal  missionaries.     Episcopacy  invidiously  represented  as  a  cause 
of  the  American  Revolution. 

Letter  XIV.,  p.  279. 
Puritanic  treatment  of  the  Baptists. 

Letter  XV.,  p.  306. 
Puritanic  treatment  of  the  Quakers. 

Letter  XVI.,  p.  333. 
Puritanic  treatment  of  the  Papists. 

Letter  XVII.,  p.  361. 
Puritanic  treatment  of  the  Presbyterians. 

Letter  XVIIL,  p.  394. 
Puritanic  treatment  of  the  Indians. 


LETTER  I. 


TO     THE     BISHOPS     AND     CLERGY,    WHO     HAVE    URGED    ME    TO    MY    PRESENT 
UNDERTAKING. 

Fathers  and  Brethren  : — 

Agreeably  to  the  plan  which  I  have  marked  out  for  ray- 
self,  this  first  letter  will  be,  almost  entirely,  an  exact  reprint 
of  the  first  letter  on  the  Puritans,  addressed  to  '*  The  Church- 
man" in  January  1835.  I  consider  it  important  to  give  this 
letter  in  full,  as  well  because  it  is  a  bird's-eye  view  of  the  whole 
subject,  as  because  it  shows  the  provocation  under  which  1 
at  first  acted.  That  letter  was  designed  to  be  all  I  might 
write ;  but  a  fresh  and  bitterer  provocation  induced  me  to 
continue  writing.  I  accordingly  commenced  anew,  but 
with  abundant  references  to  books  and  documents,  to  show 
that  I  did  not  mean  to  deal  in  unsupported  allegations ;  and 
I  was  not  aware  that  I  was  under  the  influence  of  an 
angry  temper  ;  for  I  am  quite  sure,  Puritan  history  has 
made  me  smile  twenty  times,  where  it  has  made  me  scowl 
once :  if,  indeed,  I  am  amenable  to  the  charge  of  scowling, 
in  any  just  degree  whatever.  Nevertheless,  I  was  informed, 
to  my  profound  astonishment,  that  I  was  considered  quite 
ferocious;  and,  at  Andover,  pronounced  to  be  (after  the 
fashion  of  old  indictments,)  under  the  direct  instigation 
of  the  devil.     And  when  so  told  I  smiled   again  ;  for,  un- 

2 


14  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

conscious  of  any  malice,  I  thouglit  the  sting  of  my  papers 
lay  in  my  facts ;  and  especially  in  my  arranging  those  facts 
under  a  line  of  poetry,  taken  from  a  Puritan  himself ^  and 
which  he  would  fain  have  applied  to  Churchmen,  or  to 
dissenters  from  a  Puritan  establishment.  The  line — "  Old 
wounds  need  vinegar  as  well  as  oil" — is  doubtless  well  re- 
membered ;  but  perhaps  it  is  not  as  well  remembered,  that 
when  I  was  informed  of  its  ofTensiveness,  I  struck  it  out, 
and  never  intruded  it  again. 

But  I  will  not  dwell  on  these  matters,  and  postpone  what 
is  far  more  important.  They  have  been  introduced  solely  to 
show,  that  when  I  wrote  before,  I  was  not  under  the  influ- 
ence of  that  aggressive  hostility  to  Puritanism,  which  many 
imputed  to  me,  and  that  I  am  not  under  it  still.  I  wrote, 
because  constrained  to  do  it  in  defence  of  our  Church  ;  and 
take  up  my  pen  again,  not  self-prompted,  but  at  your  urgent 
request,  because  you  assure  me  the  Church  may  be  bene- 
fited by  my  humble  advocacy.  I  regret  the  necessity  which 
requires  us,  in  support  of  our  own  cause,  to  tell  plain  and 
unwelcome  truths  concerning  our  opponents  ;  but,  relying 
on  your  judgment  in  the  case,  shall  proceed  to  my  task. 
One  thing  those  opponents  most  certainly  must  admit,  viz  : 
that  I  have  been  in  no  hurry  to  repeat  the  disagreeable 
statements  I  once  made;  or  to  repeat  them  in  a  more  durable 
form  than  that  of  a  fugitive  newspaper.  It  is  now  more 
than  ten  years,  since  I  first  wrote  what  here  follows. 


I  have  just  been  reading  a  pamphlet,  the  imitator  of  a 
succession  as  closely  adhered  to  by  Congregationalists,  as  the 
apostolical  one  by  Churchmen.  Its  title  is,  "  Great  Princi- 
ples associated  with  Plymouth  Rock."  Now,  Mr.  Editor, 
suppose  your  humble  servant  were  to  attempt  a  pamphlet 
with  a  similar  title,  only  altering  the  association  from  this 
inuch-famed  piece  of  granite,  to  some  spot  of  clay,  or  sand, 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  15 

in  Virginia,  or  Maryland,  or  Pennsylvania,  or  perchance  to 
quite  as  good  a  block  of  stone  on  the  shores  of  Rhode 
Island* — how  our  Massachusetts  Puritans,^  (I  beg  pardon, 
the  descendants  of  them — the  name  is  rather  unsavory  to 
some,)  would  stare  !  And  yet  as  a  Churchman,  or  a  Roman 
Catholic,  or  a  Quaker,  or  a  Baptist,  it  might  be  done  by 
me  with  a  very  serene  conscience,  as  these  few  lines  may 
show. 

The  celebrity  of  Plymouth-rock  heroes  is  expatiated  on, 
year  by  year,  with  most  unflagging  perseverance.  Why?  Oh! 
because,  as  this  address  tells  us,  for  about  the  two-hundreth 
time,  (they  landed  in  1620,)  ''  they  were  persecuted — that 
they  fled  from  persecution — that  they  came  in  suffering  and 
poverty  to  a  desolate  shore,  in  the  dreariness  of  winter,  and 
reared  their  rude  habitations  amid  'the  peltings  of  the  piti- 
less storm,'  and  the  ravages  of  disease;"  (p.  19;)  because 
they  were  striving  "  to  escape  from  the  tyranny  of  unjust 
kings,  and  the  domination  of  lords  spiritual;"  (p.  12;)  and 
were  willing  to  endure  all  this,  that  they  might  throw  off" 
"  the  yoke  of  despotism,  and  cast  aside  the  mummeries 
of  superstition ;"  (p.  12;)  because,  "if  a  heathen  could 
declare,  that  a  great  man  struggling  with  adversity  is  a 
sight  worthy  of  the  gods,"  then  we  ought  to  "  venerate 
Christians,  thus  suffering  with  fortitude  for  conscience' 
sake."     (p.  19.) 

Is  the  tyranny  by  which  public  opinion  is  swayed — the 
yoke  under  which  it  is  bowed — the  mummery  by  which  it 
is  mocked,  never  to  cease  ? 

Here  are  a  body  of  men  who  desert  their  native  land,''  at 
a  most  inclement  season  of  the  year,  and  subject  themselves 
to  excessive  and  protracted  hardships.  True,  the  spectacle 
is  melancholy,  and  we  are  fain  to  pity  it.  But  so  also  is 
the  spectacle  of  the    privations  endured  by   a   Greenland 

1  See  Note  1.  ^  See  Note  2.  ^  See  Note  3. 


16  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

whale-fisherman :  why  are  we  not  as  much  bound  to  com- 
passionate him  ?  Tliis  question  shows,  it  is  not  their  mere 
losses  and  pains,  which  makes  the  case  of  the  Puritans 
deeply  lamentable.  Still,  as  the  naked  exhibition  of  human 
misery  (aside  from  its  causes)  is  an  effective  means  by  which 
to  move  our  sensibilities,  it  has  been  unfailingly  relied  on 
by  Plymouth  orators.  So  the  advocates  in  Roman  courts 
often  introduced  the  wives  and  children  of  an  individual 
client,  and  made  their  tears  and  moans  speak  for  him.  At  this 
day,  whether  rhetoric  is  argument  need  not  be  asked.  Let 
us  then  forego  sensibility  a  moment,  and  with  cool  justice 
inquire,  simply  and  plainly,  why  the  Puritans  came  to  these 
Atlantic  shores.  Did  they  abandon  England  solely ^  or  even 
principally^  on  account  of  religious  considerations  ?*  My 
answer  is  an  immediate  negative :  and  I  think  it  can  easily 
be  made  out  from  a  single  work  I  have  at  hand,  and  might  as 
well  or  better  be  from  many  others,  had  I  at  this  moment 
access  to  them.  The  work  alluded  to  is  entitled,  "An  Ac- 
count of  the  European  Settlements  in  America,  in  six  parts." 
London,  1757.  2  vols.  8vo.  The  work  is  a  rare  and  valu- 
ble  one,  and  speaks  with  candor  of  the  faults  and  excellencies 
of  both  parties. 

It  states  unequivocally,  (vol.  ii.  137,  138,)  that ''  early  in 
the  reign  of  King  James,  a  number  of  persons  of  this  per- 
suasion [Puritan]  had  sought  refuge  in  Holland;  in  which, 
though  a  country  of  the  greatest  religious  freedom  in  the 
world,  they  did  not  find  themselves  better  satisfied  than  they 
had  been  in  England.  They  were  tolerated,  indeed,  but 
watched  ;  their  zeal  began  to  have  dangerous  languors  for 
want  of  opposition,  and  being  without  power  or  consequence, 
they  grew  tired  of  the  indolent  security  of  their  sanctuary  ; 
they  chose  to  remove  to  a  place  where  they  should  see  no 
superior."     Now,  if  they  merely  wanted  freedom   of  con- 

4  See  Note  4. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  17 

science,  they  had  it  in  Holland,  ex  abtindanti.  But  as  our 
author  affirms,  with  unquestionable  truth,  they  were  there 
"  without  power  or  consequence."  And,  moreover,  as  their 
charter  for  a  settlement  in  America,  which  they  had  wit  or 
influence  enough  to  obtain  even  ivhen  they  had  left  England^ 
— as  this  charter  shows,  they  were  not  quite  so  stern  in 
practice,  as  in  preaching,  about  the  compatibility  between 
piety  and  a  regajrd  to  temporal  interests.  These  formidable 
denouncers  of  that  love  which  is  '*  the  root  of  all  evil,"  took 
precious  good  care  that  this  charter  should  cover  an  "  ex- 
clusive trade,"  "  from  Nova  Scotia  to  the  southern  parts  of 
Carolina,"  and,  (though  they  had  a  most  pious  horror  of  the 
Pope,  and  would  have  execrated  him  from  head  to  foot,  after 
his  own  fashion  of  cursing,  for  giving  away  the  soil  of  South 
America,)  that  it  should  also  guarantee  "  the  entire  property 
of  the  soil  besides."  (See  vol.  ii.  138,  of  the  work  above.) 
Nay,  as  this  same  work  shows,  p.  140,  "  the  then  profitable 
trade  of  furs  and  skins,"  and  the  fisheries,  induced  not  a  few, 
"  uneasy  at  home  upon  a  religious  account,"  to  go  where 
they  might  enjoy  the  invaluable  privilege  of  free  thought, 
and  the  inconsiderable  one  of  making  money  a  little  faster. 
In  connexion  with  the  testimony  of  the  work  just  quoted, 
I  cannot  refrain  from  adding  one  which  occurs  to  me,  from 
a  discourse  I  heard  delivered  a  few  years  since,  before  the 
Essex  Historical  Society,  by  the  Hon.  Justice  Story.*  It 
amply  proves,  that  aversion  to  the  Church  of  England,  as  a 
spiritual  institution,  was  by  no  means  the  excuse  of  the 
Puritans  for  expatriating  themselves  from  a  land  dear  to 
them  by  almost  every  sacred  tie.  The  Judge  quoted  from 
their  farewell  communication,  when  they  were  under  weigh, 
or  had  just  launched  upon  the  deep.  He  showed  how  they 
called  the  Church  of  England  their  ''  dear  mother,"   and 

^  See  Note  5. 

*  Delivered  Sept.  18,  1828  ;  and  now  to  be  found  in  Story's  Miscel- 
lanieSj  p.  34. 


18  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

indulged  in  terms  of  unbounded  reverence  and  affection 
towards  her.  In  fact,  so  strong  and  pertinent  was  the  lan- 
guage quoted  by  him,*  that,  as  it  fell  from  his  lips,  a  Calvin- 
ist  near  me  was  unable  to  keep  quiet.  True  to  his  sect,  he 
could  not  accredit  the  Judge's  honesty,  in  a  matter  which 
militated  against  them ;  for  he  knew  that  the  sympathies  of 
the  speaker  were  with  Unitarians.  So,  turning  to  me,  he 
whispered  with  most  ominous  emphasis  and  deliberation, 
"  Can  this  be  true  V^ 

Such  evidence,  Mr.  Editor,  (and  it  might  be  piled  up  in 
heaps,  if  necessary,)  establishes  incontestably  the  fact,  that 
persecution  for  religious  opinions  never  drove  the  Puritans 
from  home,  to  seek  the  inhospitable  shelter  of  a  howling 
wilderness.  They  might  have  had  comfortable  homes,  by 
good  Dutch  peat-fires,  and  lived  and  died  unmolested  and 
unfearing ;  although,  perhaps,  \\\\\\  less  stock  at  the  bank- 
er's, than  "  exclusive  trade "  in  furs  and  fisheries  might 
secure.  But  they  wanted  a  little  more  notoriety — a  little 
more  power — a  little  more  money.  They  who  wielded  the 
government  of  England,  and  enjoyed  its  offices,  were  Epis- 
copalians :  those  who  were  at  the  helm  in  Holland,  were 
Presbyterians ;  who  were  rather  more  fond  than  they  of  Ar- 
minianism,t  and  fully  as  much  so  of  "exclusive  trade,"  and 
"entire  property"  in  soil.  The  ascendency  in  Holland 
would  be  as  hard  to  gain,  as  the  ascendency  at  home ;  (I 
mean  the  ascendency  in  politics,  money-making  and  reli- 
gion;) and  so  nothing  remained  but  to  "  hoist  the  mainsail 
to  the  wind,"  and  steer  for  a  land  where  they  might  be 
unrivalled  and  supreme. 

Verily  this  is  the  plain  case,  and  the  whole  of  it.  The 
Puritans  did  not  hate  the  Church  of  England  'per  se.^ 
Their    affectionate    and    reverential    language,    (language 

«  See  Note  6. 

*  Story's  Miscellanies,  p.  54. 

t  I  should  have  said  *  of  their  own  church  polity.' 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  19 

Strong  enough  to  excite  suspicions  of  garbling  and  misquo- 
tation, against  a  gentleman  of  unblemished  honor  and  in- 
tegrity,) proves  this  beyond  all  question ;  or  they  really 
were,  what  their  enemies  have  called  them,  canting  hypo- 
crites. If  they  could  have  enjoyed  the  powers,  immunities, 
and  revenues  of  the  Church  of  England,  that  Church  would 
have  become  "  all  glorious  within  :"  she  would  have  been 
"  without  wrinkle  and  without  spot;"  as  she  would  now  be, 
in  the  eyes  of  many  a  Dissenter,  who  is  sounding  alarms 
about  her  corruptions,  and  shouting  '  Reform  !  Reform !' 
with  the  vociferous  zeal  of  the  multitude,  who  cried  '  Cru- 
cify him  !  Crucify  him!""  They  were  any  thing  but  in- 
imical to  Establishments  on  principle ;  for  they  commenced 
their  own  Establishment  in  Massachusetts,  with  marvellous 
speed  and  sagacity ;  and  so  well  were  its  foundations  laid — 
so  accurately  and  solidly  were  its  parts  cemented,  that  we 
find  the  author  of  our  address  saying,  (p.  26,)  "  The  last 
link,  connecting  Church  and  State  in  this  Commonwealth, 
has  happily  been  broken,  by  abolishing  the  law  requiring  a 
general  assessment  for  the  support  of  public  worship  :" — 
broken  however,  be  it  remembered,  not  till  1834  : — pretty 
good  iron,  Mr.  Editor,  and  well  taken  care  of,  to  last  so 
long.^ 

I  say  they  commenced  their  own  Establishment.  Let 
our  author  speak  to  this  point.  (Eu.  Sett.  ii.  144.)  ''  As 
soon  as  they  began  to  think  of  making  laws,  I  find  no  less 
than  five  about  matters  of  religion ;  all  contrived,  and  not 
only  contrived  but  executed  in  some  respects  with  so  much 
rigor,  that  the  persecution  which  drove  the  Puritans  out  of 
England,  [you  see  he  spares  not  Churchmen,]  might  be 
considered  as  great  lenity  and  indulgence  in  the  compar- 
ison."^ 

The  penalties  of  these  laws  were  inflicted  on  Episcopa- 

'  See  Note  7.  «  See  Note  8.  »  See  Note  9. 


20  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

lians,  Roman  Catholics,  Quakers,  and  Baptists;  who  were 
arraigned,  fined,  proscribed,  banished,  threatened  with 
death,  and  in  several  instances  actually  executed.  Yes,  be 
it  never  forgotten,  when  an  attempt  is  made  to  drug  us  with 
the  praises  of  meek  and  mourning  Puritans — martyrs  in  the 
cause  of  truth  and  conscience — that,  though  lambs  dumb 
before  their  shearers  in  England,  a  journey  of  three  thou- 
sand miles  was  enough  to  convert  them  into  wolves  that 
dabble  in  blood!'"  Such  men,  (the  black  deed  cannot  be 
wiped  out  of  history's  page,)  appealed  to  the  cord  and  the 
gibbet,  when  decrees  of  banishment  and  threats  of  violence 
were  not  sufficiently  intimidating.  The  fires  of  Smithfield 
— the  dungeons  of  the  Inquisition — the  fines  of  the  Star 
Chamber,  are  all  bad  enough ;  but  let  a  Puritan  beware  of 
comment  on  them  ;  his  own  story,  especially  when  con- 
trasted with  his  pretensions,  is  as  bad  as  any  chapter  in  the 
horrible  or  disgusting  records  of  human  wrath  and  vio- 
lence.'^ Indeed,  I  never  wonder,  as  I  read  it,  at  the  keen 
and  witty  comment  of  one  of  their  own  number,  whom  de- 
testation of  their  uncharitableness  constrained  to  seek 
refuge  in  the  very  country  he  had  abandoned.*  *'  I  fled," 
said  he,  "  from  England  to  escape  the  tyranny  of  my  lord- 
bisJiops  ;  but  I  was  glad  to  get  back  again  to  escape  the  ty- 
ranny of  my  lord-brethren.''^ ^  t 

Let  us  now  turn,  a  few  moments,  from  the  Puritans  to 
their  neighbors ;  pretendedly  so  much  their  inferiors  in 
piety,  and  confessedly  their  inferiors  in  the  love  of  power 
and  domination,  and  withal  of  finding  and  keeping  money. 

The  poor  Cavaliers,  and  their  descendants,  fled  from 

^°  See  Note  10.  ^'  See  Note  11.  12  ggg  -^^^^  i^. 

*  So  I  then  thought  ;  but  it  seems  he  went  to  Rhode  Island. 

t  This  was  said  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Blackstone,  whom  Cotton  Mather 
condescends  to  call  one  of  the  "  some  godly  Episcopalians."  Magnalia, 
i.  221. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  21 

Puritan  persecution,  in  the  days  of  the  Parliament,  and 
sought  refuge  in  Virginia.  There  they  were  content  to 
remain  in  quiet,  if  undisturbed.  But  no :  the  trade  in  to- 
bacco, &/C.,  was  getting  to  be  valuable  ;  and  missionaries 
were  therefore  necessary  to  convert  them  to  the  true  faith  I 
Missionaries  were  actually  sent  from  New  England  to  Vir- 
ginia, and  by  men  whose  descendants  raised  a  grievous  out- 
cry, in  the  days  of  Drs.  Mayhew  and  Apthorp,  because  the 
Society  for  Propagating  the  Gospel  presumed  to  send  mis- 
sionaries to  Massachusetts — a  soil,  forsooth,  "  the  entire 
property,"  (remember  the  charter,  Mr.  Editor,)  ''  the  entire 
property  "  of  the  Puritans.  It  were  a  singular  theme  of 
speculation,  to  pause  here  and  try  to  conjecture  why,  when 
a  Papist  or  a  Churchman  descants  on  ecclesiastical  jurisdic- 
tion, his  ideas  are  divertingly  ridiculous,  but  wholly  change 
their  nature  when  the  theme  of  a  Congregation alist.  But 
this  curious  subject  must  be  left,  with  some  other  mysteries 
in  our  American  logic  and  psychology,  to  an  author  of  our 
own  Church;  who,  when  his  history  of  Virginia,  &c.,  shall 
appear,  will  undoubtedly  solve  them  for  the  satisfaction  of 
all,  at  least,  of  all  Churchmen. '^ 

I  proceed.  In  Maryland  the  Roman  Catholics  clus- 
tered together  ;  but  they,  although  quite  as  much,  or  more 
oppressed  by  civil  enactments  than  the  Puritans,  better  esti- 
mated the  value  of  an  unharassed  conscience,  and  more 
cordially  respected  its  privileges.  In  Maryland,  (so  the 
Roman  Catholics  claim :  see  the  well-written  pastoral  letter 
of  their  prelates,  assembled  in  council  in  Baltimore,  a  few 
years  since,)  the  rights  of  conscience  were  first  fully  recog- 
nized in  this  country.  This  is  a  fact  I  never  knew  dis- 
puted by  good  authority ;  and,  though  a  Protestant  with  all 
my  heart,-  I  accord  them  the  full  praise  of  it  with  the 
frankest  sincerity,  and  boldly  declare,  it  honors  them  on  the 

13  See  Note  13. 

2* 


^o 


22  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

silent  page  of  our  annals,  more  than  the  Puritans  were  ever 
honored  by  the  noisy  plaudits  of  a  hundred  Plymouth  de- 
claimers.^* 

In  Pennsylvania,  the  scouted  Quakers  acknowledged, 
respected,  and  granted  the  right  of  unrestricted  enjoyment 
in  matters  of  religion. 

In  Rhode  Island,  the  same  thing  was  done  by  Roger 
Williams,  and  the  banished  Baptists. 

Now,  Mr.  Editor,  in  view  of  so  cursory  an  illustration 
and  comparison  as  even  this,  let  me  ask, — Is  it  fair,  is  it 
honorable,  is  it  candid,  for  a  selfish  and  unsparing  clan,  who 
with  their  descendants  never  admitted  nor  conceded  the 
right  of  private  judgment — who  linked  Church  and  State  to- 
gether so  tightly,  that  centuries  could  hardly  sunder  them — 
who  persecuted  by  law,  by  penalties,  by  proscription  and 
violence — who  shrunk  not  from  the  tremendous  daring  of 
deeds  of  blood  in  the  sight  of  all  heaven — is  it  fair,  is  it 
honorable,  is  it  candid,  oh  !  is  it  to  be  tolerated,  that  such 
men  should  be  eulogized,  and  re-eulogized,  with  every  suc- 
cessive year,  until  their  fame  has  become  a  standing  topic 
for  canonization  ?  To  me,  when  I  think  of  the  superior  lib- 
erality of  Churchmen,  of  Papists,  of  Quakers,  and  of  Bap- 
tists, this  seems  at  times  quite  monstrous  ;  and  I  feel  as  if  a 
few  of  the  unlovely,  nay  the  disgraceful,  merciless,  and  san- 
guinary passages  of  Puritan  history,  in  this  country,  ought 
to  be  known  and  well  known.  They  shall  be,  if  the  writer 
live  to  see  the  repetition  of  laudatory  harangues  over  them. 
He  has  borne  the  infliction  of  such  harangues,  till  he  thought 
the  good  sense  of  the  community  would  be  an  ample  correc- 
tion. It  seems  that  this  cannot  be  relied  on,  for  the  simple 
reason,  that  but  {e\\  of  the  community  have  ever  heard  but 
one  side  of  the  question  ;  and  on  that  so  many  changes 
have  been  rung,  as  to  induce  many  to  believe  none  other 

"  See  Note  14. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  23 

can  be  sounded.  Our  patience  is  not  respected.  Still  the 
wearisome  and  revolting  tale  about  the  persecutions  of  the 
Church  of  Enorland  is  clanored,  clanged  in  our  ears,  and 
thrust  up  in  our  faces  ;  as  though  it  would  be  heresy  or 
treason  to  think  it  suspicious  or  untrue.  Such  treatment 
can  only  be  parried  by  alert  self-defence.  Let  this  then  be 
resorted  to.  It  has  been  attempted  in  this  hasty  sketch ; 
which,  scanty  as*  it  is,  can  still  show  what  might  be  said, 
and  may  possibly  provoke  a  caution,  which  has  long  been 
swallowing  anodynes  and  has  fallen  asleep. 
January  24,  1835. 


Such  was  the  beginning  of  my  observations  on  the  Puri- 
tans, at  the  date  given  above  ;  and,  with  this,  it  was  fully 
intended  my  labors,  in  the  defence  of  our  Church  against 
modern  assailants,  should  rest.  But,  (if  I  may  repeat  a 
little,  to  be  very  explicitly  understood,)  my  ink  was  scarcely 
dry,  when  my  resolution  was  put  to  an  acute  trial  by  another 
pamphlet,  far  more  virulent  than  its  predecessor  :  which  I 
descwbed,  at  the  time,  in  language  of  little  reserve,  but 
which,  as  some  thought  it  too  caustic,  shall  not  be  reiterated. 
Feeling  challenged  to  meet  the  issue  I  had  contemplated, 
but  earnestly  hoped  to  escape,  I  commenced  again,  and 
wrote  for  *'  The  Churchman"  (published  then,  as  it  still  is,  in 
New-York,)  a  series  of  articles,  which  drew  down  upon  my 
name  a  shower  of  scorching  execrations,  that  might  well 
have  withered  a  stronger  resolution  than  I  ever  could  boast 
of  But,  luckily  for  myself,  I  was  in  retirement,  and  knew 
extremely  little  of  what  was  said  by  friend  or  foe.  I  heard 
of  the  storm  after  it  had  passed,  and  with  amazement ;  for  I 
did  not  imagine  that,  in  this  enlightened  and  liberal  age, 
facts  (and  my  columns  were  studded  with  references)  could 
alarm  any  one.  Yet  so  it  was ;  and  so  thoroughly  was  I 
possessed  with  the  idea  that  I  had  acquired  a  most  unblessed 


24  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

celebrity,  that,  though  urged  and  urged  again  to  put  my  ar- 
ticles into  a  permanent  form,  I  steadily  refused.  Churchmen 
have  so  often  assured  me  that  I  have  erred,  and  such  a  list 
of  names  is  at  last  sent  to  induce  me  to  yield  my  determina- 
tion, that  I  have  acquiesced.  And  I  have  done  so  with  a 
firm  belief,  that  the  virulence  of  past  days  has  not  abated. 
Never  have  American  Episcopalians  known  more  fiery 
trials,  under  the  assaults  of  adversaries,  than  during  the  last 
few  years.  And  these  assaults  threaten,  like  Nebuchadnez- 
zar's furnace,  to  be  seven  times  hotter.  For  example,  could 
any  thing,  in  the  compass  of  the  human  imagination,  picture 
our  Church  in  a  more  woeful,  reprobate  condition,  than  the 
last  New  Englander,  (Oct.  1844,  p.  526,)  which  portrays 
it  as  on  the  eve  of  becoming  "  a  sacramental  way  to  hell  ?"* 
If  in  such  circumstances,  then,  some  of  that  plainness  of 
speech  and  open  array  of  fact,  which  was  deemed  so  un- 
necessary in  1835,  be  again  attempted,  upon  the  heads  of 
those  who  have  provoked  it  let  the  blame  fall. 

My  plan,  in  the  letters  that  may  follow,  will  be  to  give  a 
brief  outline  of  the  origin  and  aim  of  Puritanism  in  England, 
with  some  developments  of  its  temper  and  treatment ;  Jthen 
to  pursue  its  history  in  New  England,  more  in  detail,  as  was 
before  done.  For  the  accomplishment  of  my  work,  I  shall 
rely  much  upon  the  letters  addressed  to  "  The  Churchman  ;" 
though  I  shall  not  quote  them  as  I  have  the  first,  and  shall 
endeavor  to  have  less  "  vinegar"  in  my  ink,  than  I  was  sup- 
posed to  use  previously,  however  the  sharpness  of  the  times 
might  justify  its  employment. 

*  This  is  an  echo,  like  many  such  things,  of  the  style  of  an  earlier 
day.  Bogue  and  Bennett  represent  the  Puritans  as  flying  from  a  false 
and  superstitious  religion  with  impositions  on  conscience — the  greatest 
evil  on  this  side  hell. — Hist,  of  Dissenters,  ii.  427.  One  of  the  fashiona- 
ble Puritan  ways,  in  old  times,  to  describe  the  Church  of  England,  was 
to  say,  that  she  was  "Anti-Christian,  yea,  of  the  Devil." — Edwards' 
Gangraena,  pt.  i.  p.  25.     Or  see  Edwards  quoted  in  Note  29. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  25 


LETTER  II. 

Pursuing  my  plan,  I  shall  endeavor,  in  this  letter,  to 
present  you  my  views  of  the  origin  and  rise  of  Puritanism  in 
England. 

It  is  generally  supposed  that  Puritanism  took  its  rise 
from  the  exiles,  who  were  compelled  to  fly  the  kingdom  in 
the  reign  of  Queen  Mary,  and  who  sojourned  on  the  conti- 
nent long  enough  to  imbibe  a  love  for  the  discipline  and 
doctrine  of  the  continental  Protestants.  But  a  writer,  who 
deals  largely  in  quotations  from  their  own  books,  and  who 
lived  through  all  the  reverses  of  Charles  I.  and  Abp.  Laud, 
maintains  the  contrary.  This  writer  is  Sir  William  Dug- 
dale,  who  was  born  in  1605  and  died  in  1686.  In  his  folio 
upon  *'  the  late  troubles  in  England,"  published  in  1681,  he 
advances  the  opinion,  that  they  were  first  imported  into 
England  from  the  continent,  in  the  reign  of  King  Edward 
VI.,  and  created  so  much  disturbance  as  to  excite  the  ire 
even  of  Calvin,  who  was  no  enemy  of  wholesome  authority, 
and  by  no  means  shrank  from  the  use  of  carnal  weapons 
and  material  fire.  Calvin  would  have  had  Somerset,  the 
Protector  during  Edward's  minority,  restrain  them  "  by  the 
revenging  sword."* 

No  doubt  the  leaven  of  Puritanism  was  working  in  Eng- 
land before  the  days  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  The  very  emblem 
of  it  (a  round  head)  was  well  known  in  Germany,  long  be- 
fore its  appearance  on  English  shores  ;t  and  if  the  outside 

*  Dugdale,  p.  9.  t  Dugdale,  p.  8. 


26  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

of  its  liead  was  imported  from  a  land  of  fierce  fanaticism,  it 
is  hard  to  suppose  that  some  of  the  inside  of  it  did  not  come 
from  the  same  source.  Bishop  Hall  fearlessly  avowed  as 
much,  in  his  place  in  Parliament.  *'  Your  Lordships  know," 
said  he  in  one  of  his  speeches,  *'  that  the  Jack  Straws,  and 
Cades,  and  Wat  Tylers  of  former  times,  did  not  more  cry 
down  learning  than  nobility ;  and  those  of  your  Lordships 
that  have  read  the  history  of  the  Anabaptistical  tumults  at 
Munster,  will  need  no  other  item  :  let  it  be  enough  to  say, 
that  many  of  these  sectaries  are  of  the  same  profession."* 
The  fanatics  of  Germany  then  are  the  first  fathers  of  Pu- 
ritanism— fanatics,  whom  the  sternness  of  Roman  despo- 
tism drove  into  the  terrible  extremes  which  they  adven- 
tured. There  is  no  question,  however,  that  Puritanism 
was  abetted  and  fomented  by  the  exiles  who  returned 
from  Geneva  and  elsewhere,  saturated  with  foreign  disci- 
pline, doctrine,  and  politics ;  and  as  these  exiles  were  made 
such,  by  the  same  despotism,  we  are  in  more  than  one  way 
indebted  to  the  Romish  Church  for  all  the  evils  which  Pu- 
ritanism has  drawn  in  its  train.' ^  Rome  denounces  the 
Protestant  world  for  its  dissensions.  When  all  liberty  has 
been  taken  from  men,  they  are  apt  to  abuse  it,  if  regained 
by  blood  from  their  oppressors  ;  and  more  of  the  sin  of  Pro- 
testant dissension  will  be  found  in  the  skirts  of  Popery,  than 
was  ever  remotely  suspected  in  the  halls  of  the  Vatican. f 

And  in  England  itself,  the  commencement  of  Puritan- 
ism was  neither  unnoticed  nor  unregarded  by  politicians, 

'^  See  Note  15. 

*  Works,  viU.  490. 

t  Singularly  enough,  as  some  may  think,  this  very  opinion  was  en- 
tertained by  Abp.  Laud  himself.  In  his  most  able  Conference  with  the 
Jesuit  Fisher,  he  affirmed,  that  the  divisions  of  Protestants  were  the  inev- 
itable result  of"  the  corruptions  and  superstitions  of  Rome,  which  forced 
many  men  to  hold  and  teach  the  contrar)'." — (Conference,  Oxford  edit. 
1839,  p.  112.) 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  27 

and  by  politicians  of  high  station.  It  is  well  known  that 
many  politicians,  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.,  favored  his 
Protestant  views  ;  not  so  much  because  they  loved  the  Ro- 
mish Church  but  little,  as  because  they  loved  its  spoils  the 
more.  Greedy  politicians  battened  upon  the  impropriated 
revenues  of  the  Church  then,  and  they  hoped  to  play  the 
same  game  over  again,  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth.  Bishops 
were  lords  under  a  Protestant  queen,  as  well  as  under  a 
Popish  monarch  ;  and  in  the  progress  of  time  their  sees  were 
.calculated  to  become  richer  than  ever,  by  a  natural  advance 
in  the  value  of  landed  ^property.  This  was  easily  foreseen, 
by  eyes  roving  for  golden  prospects  ;  and  any  scheme  which 
would  divert  the  lands  of  an  Episcopal  see,  and  erect  them 
into  a  temporal  barony,  was  of  course  a  fair  one  to  find  fa- 
vor. Good  Isaac  Walton  saw  through  all  this,  with  half  an  eye, 
and  thus  states  the  matter  in  his  life  of  Richard  Hooker.  "  So 
that  those  very  men,  that  began  with  tender,  meek  petitions, 
proceeded  to  admonitions,  then  to  satirical  remonstrances ; 
and  at  last  having,  like  Absalom,  numbered  who  was  not 
and  who  was  for  their  cause,  they  got  a  supposed  certainty 
of  so  great  a  party,  that  they  durst  threaten  first  the  bishops, 
and  then  the  Queen  and  Parliament :  to  all  which  they  were 
secretly  encouraged  by  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  then  in  great 
favor  with  her  Majesty,  and  the  reputed  cherisher  and  pa- 
tron-general of  these  pretenders  to  tenderness  of  conscience  : 
his  design  being,  by  their  means,  to  bring  such  odium  upon 
the  bishops,  as  to  procure  the  alienation  of  their  lands,  and 
a  large  proportion  of  them  for  himself;  which  avaricious 
desire  had  at  last  so  blinded  his  reason,  that  his  ambitious 
and  greedy  hopes  seemed  to  put  him  into  a  present  posses- 
sion of  Lambeth  House."* 

*  Hanbury's  Hooker,  i.  pp.  Ixxv,  Ixxvi.  Maddox's  Vindication,  pp. 
186,  187.  Soame's  Elizabethan  History,  78,  366-67.  Broughton's 
Diet.  ii.  303.  Lathbury's  Eng.  Episcopacy,  43.  King  Charles  saw  the 
same  disposition  in  his  day.     ''  The  confiscation  of  men's  estates  being 


28  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

And  there  is  stronger  testimony  than  this,  which  goes 
straight  to  show,  that  the  Puritans  looked  further,  much 
further,  than  relief  from  a  few  "  indifferent  ceremonies." 
*'  The  same  spirit,"  says  De  Lolme,  **  which  had  made  an 
attack  on  the  established  faith,  now  directed  itself  to  poli- 
tics."* This  was  in  reference  to  a  somewhat  later  time  than 
the  period  now  under  review  ;  but  it  is  the  direct  fulfilment 
of  a  prophecy  uttered  by  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and 
the  Bishop  of  London,  in  an  official  letter,  so  early  as  A.  D. 
1573.  "  In  the  platform  set  down  by  these  new  builders,  we 
evidently  see  the  spoliation  of  the  patrimony  of  Christ  and  a 
popular  state  to  be  sought.  The  end  will  be,  ruin  to  reli- 
gion, and  confusion  to  our  country. "t  Laud,  who  by  a 
singular  coincidence  was  born  this  very  year,  1573,  fore- 
saw and  predicted  the  same  result.  "  These  men,"  said 
he,  "  do  but  begin  with  the  Church,  that  they  might 
after  have  the  freer  access  to  the  State." '^ J  For  Laud 
was  a  scholar,  beyond  even  Puritan  question  ;  and  I  dare 
say  he  remembered  his  Virgil,  or  Montaigne's  beautiful  ver- 
sion of  him,  where  he  says  :  "  I  am  betimes  sensible  of  the 
little  breezes,  that  begin  to  sing  and  whistle  in  the  shrouds ; 
the  forerunners  of  the  storm."  The  protestation  of  loyalty, 
required  of  Puritans  as  well  as  Papists,  demonstrates  the 
open  apprehension  of  Elizabeth's  government ;  though  Mr. 
Neal,  with  his  usual  confidence,  presumes  to  say  there  was 
"  no  manner  of  occasion"   for  it.§ 

And,  beginning  upon  the  Church,  where  did  their  ad- 
vancing and  branching  schemes  design  to  end  ?     In  nothing 
less  than  in  a  political,  as  well  as  ecclesiastical,  revolution 
16  See  Note  16. 

more  beneficial  than  the  charity  of  saving  their  lives,  or  reforming  their 
errors." — Eikon  Basilike,  p.  105.      London,  182-i. 

*  De  Lolme  on  the  Constitution,  p.  50. 

t  Collier's  Eccl.  Hist.  vi.  536. 

t  Harris's  Charles  L  p.  231.  §  Neal's  Puritans,  i.  274. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  29 

of  all  England.  "  Reformation  begins  at  the  sanctuary," 
was  their  motto,  in  the  preface  to  a  most  radical  little  vol- 
ume, called  the  "  Anatomy  of  the  Service  Booke  ;"  which 
was  intended  to  provoke  Parliament  to  throw  the  Liturgy 
overboard,  that  bishops,  and  king,  and  constitution,  might 
follow  after.  Truly,  they  would  have  ''  meted  out  and  trod- 
den down"  Church  and  State,  "  as  straw  is  trodden  down 
for  the  dunghill ;"  and  built  every  thing  anew,  after  "  the 
right  stamp,  and  agreeable  to  the  pattern  in  the  Mount."* 
This  is  admitted,  virtually,  by  Mr.  Hallam,  who  calls 
Laud  "  choleric,  vindictive,"  &.C.,  and  grants,  as  a  sweet 
concession,  that  he  was  "  not  literally  destitute  of  religion." 
He  allows  that  their  writings  prove,  that  they  would  have 
made  no  compromise,  short  of  the  overthrow  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church. t  It  is  admitted  by  Peirce,  in  his  Vindication 
of  Dissenters,  in  terms  still  stronger.  "  But  I  fear,"  he 
says,  *'  could  they  have  obtained  their  desire  of  the  Parlia- 
ment, the  platform  they  proposed  must  have  been  estab- 
lished by  some  persecuting  laws."|  That  is,  they  not  only 
wanted  their  own  establishment,  but  wanted  it,  besides,  a 
persecuting  one.  Brook,  another  of  their  zealous  advocates, 
makes  a  similar  admission, §  Their  principles,  as  disclosed 
in  the  quotations  ofDugdale,  and  Bp.  Hall,  (see  vol.  x.  of  his 
Works,)  show  their  wishes  in  formidable  fulness.  But,  better 
perhaps  than  any  thing,  their  terrible  sort  of  conspirator's 
oath,  proves  how  deeply  their  revolutionary  spirit  had  pene- 
trated ;  and  how  much  they  hoped  to  effect,  by  using  the 
souls  as  well  as  bodies  of  sworn  associates.  Well  does  Collier 
say,  "  as  none  were  more  active  to  increase  their  party,  so 
they  were  particularly  careful  to  fasten  their  proselytes,  and 
to  fix  them  in  their  mistakes."  He  says  this  in  prefacing  the 

*  Camb.  and  Saybrook  Platforms,  p.  6,  ed.  1829. 
t  Quarterly  Review,  37,  pp.  225,  226,  239. 
X  Vind.  p.  84. 
§  Christian  Observer,  American  Edition,  xiv,  397. 


30  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

oath,  which,  though  long,   is  given  in  full,  as  an  original 
document  of  the  highest  authority.* 

"  Being  thoroughly  persuaded  in  my  conscience,  by  the 
working  and  by  the  word  of  the  Almighty,  that  these 
relics  of  ANTICHRIST  be  abominable  before  the  Lord 
our  God  ;  and  also  for  that  by  the  power,  mercy,  strength, 
and  goodness  of  the  Lord  our  God  only,  I  am  escaped 
from  the  filthiness  and  pollution  of  these  detestable  tra- 
ditions, through  the  knowledge  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour 
Jesus  Christ ;  and,  last  of  all,  inasmuch  as  by  the  working 
also  of  the  Lord  Jesus  his  Holy  Spirit,  I  have  joined  in 
prayer  and  hearing  God's  word,  with  those  that  have  not 
yielded  to  this  idolatrous  trash,  notwithstanding  the  danger 
for  not  coming  to  my  parish  church,  &c.  Therefore  I  come 
not  back  again  to  the  preaching,  d^c,  of  them  that  have  re- 
ceived those  marks  of  the  Romish  beast. 

"  I.  Because  of  God's  commandment  to  go  forward  to  per- 
fection. Heb.  vi.  1  ;  2  Cor.  vii.  I  ;  Psalm  Ixxxiv.  1  ;  Eph. 
iv.  15.  Also  to  avoid  them,  Rom.  xvi.  17;  Eph.  v.  11; 
1  Thess.  V.  22. 

"  II.  Because  they  are  abomination  before  the  Lord  our 
God,  Deut.  vii.  25,  26,  and  xiii.  17 ;  Ezek.  xiv.  6. 

"  III.  I  will  not  beautify  with  my  presence  those  filthy 
rags,  which  bring  the  heavenly  word  of  the  Eternal,  our  Lord 
God,  into  bondage,  subjection,  and  slavery. 

"  IV.  Because  I  would  not  communicate  with  other  men's 
sins;  John  ii.  9,  10,  11  ;  2  Cor.  vi.  17.  Touch  no  unclean 
thing,  &LC.,  Sirach  xiii.  1.'^ 

"  V.  They  give  offences  both  to  the  preachers  and  the 
hearers.     Rom.  xvi.  17  ;  Luke  xvii.  1. 

"  VI.  They  gladden  and  strengthen  the  Papists  in  their 
errors,  and  grieve  the  godly;  Ezek.  xiii.  21,  22.  Note  this 
21st  verse. 

17  See  Note  17. 
*  Collier's  Eccl.  Hist.  vi.  538,  539  ;  or  ii.  544. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  31 

"  Vll.  They  do  persecute  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ  in  his 
members  ;  Acts  ix.  4,  5  ;  2  Cor.  i.  5.  Also  they  reject  and 
despise  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ ;  Luke  x.  16. 
Moreover  those  laborers,  who,  at  the  prayer  of  the  faithful, 
the  Lord  hath  sent  forth  into  his  harvest,  they  refuse,  and 
also  reject ;  Matt.  ix.  38. 

"  VIIL  These. popish  garments  are  now  become  very 
idols  indeed,  because  they  are  exalted  above  the  word  of  the 
Almighty. 

**  IX.  I  come  not  to  them,  because  they  should  be 
ashamed,  and  so  leave  their  idolatrous  garments,  &,c. ;  2 
Thess,  iii.  14.    If  any  man  obey  not  our  sayings,  note  him. 

*'  Moreover,  I  have  now  joined  myself  to  the  Church  of 
Christ,'^  wherein  I  have  yielded  myself  subject  to  the 
discipline  of  God's  word,  as  I  promised  at  my  baptism  ;* 
which,  if  I  should  now  again  mistake,  and  join  myself  with 
their  traditions,  I  should  forsake  the  union  wherein  I  am 
knit  to  the  body  of  Christ,  and  join  myself  to  the  discipline 
of  ANTICHRIST.  For,  in  the  Church  of  the  traditioners, 
there  is  no  other  discipline  than  that  which  hath  been  main- 
tained by  the  antichristian  pope  of  Rome  :  whereby  the 
Church  of  God  has  always  been  afflicted,  and  is  until  this 
day.     For  the  which  cause  I  refuse  them. 

"  God  give  us  grace  still  to  thrive,  in  suffering  under  the 
cross,  that  the  blessed  word  of  our  God  may  only  rule,  and 
have  the  highest  place,  to  cast  down  strong  holds,  to  destroy 
or  overthrow  policy  or  imaginations,  [i.  e.  polity,  or  civil 
government ;  and  imaginations,  or  systems  of  religion,] 
and  every  high  thing  that  is  exalted  against  the  knowledge 
of  God,   and  to  bring  into  captivity,   or   subjection,  every 

i«  See  Note  18. 

*  Note  this.  Even  in  a  horrid  oath  for  the  destruction  of  Episcopa- 
cy, the  Puritans  could  not  forget  their  Episcopal  education.  They  did 
not  believe,  it  appears,  as  their  successors  do,  that  baptism  is  "  a  mere 
form." 


32  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

thought  to  the  obedience  of  Christ,  &lc.  2  Cor.  x.  4,  5. 
That  the  name  and  word  of  the  Eternal,  our  Lord  God,  may 
be  exalted  or  magnified  above  all  things.     Psalm  viii.  2." 

To  this  hydra-oath,  with  these  nine  awful  heads,  the  fol- 
lowing paragraph  was  annexed,  and,  says  Collier,  "  stands 
written  in  Abp.  Parker's  hands." 

"  To  this  protestation  the  congregation  singularly  did 
swear  ;  and  after  took  the  Communion  for  ratification  of 
their  assent." 

All  this,  be  it  remembered,  dates  as  early  as  1573.*  No 
wonder  that  such  an  egg  hatched  all  the  mischiefs  of  the  re- 
bellion, ending  with  the  downfall,  and  sack,  and  devastation, 
of  the  Church  and  State  of  England. 

But  if  the  wrathful  and  final  aim  of  this  tremendous  ad- 
juration were  so  thorough,  why,  say  some,  did  the  Puritans 
commence  their  warfare  on  such  jots  and  tittles  as  caps  and 
surplices?  The  answer  is  easy.  How  does  an  expert  gen- 
eral attack  a  fortress,  almost  impregnable  ?  By  drawing  his 
lines  of  circumvallation,  cutting  off  a  bastion  here,  and  a 
redoubt  there  ;  till  he  can  bring  his  guns  to  bear  upon  its 
citadel,  and  beat  that  to  pieces  about  the  ears  of  his  oppo- 
nents, unless  they  surrender  at  discretion.  And  so  did  the 
Puritans  begin  in  England.  The  Church  might  be  made 
vulnerable,  by  raising  against  her  the  hue  and  cry  of  Po- 
pery.'^ The  State  could  be  made  vulnerable  through 
the   Church,  for  both  were  allied.^"     And  thus  both  might 

19  See  Note  19.  '°  See  Note  20. 

*  They  loved  anti-Episcopal  oaths  so  well,  they  had  them  in  rhyme 
also.     I  subjoin  a  specimen : 

"  I  owe  assistance  to  the  king  by  oath  ; 
And  if  he  please  to  put  the  prelates  down, 
As  who  can  tell  what  may  be,  I'll  be  loath 
To  see  Tom  Becket's  mitre  push  the  crown." 

For  this  amiable  effusion  see  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  ser.  iv.  104. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  33 

be  made  to  fall,  and  the  Puritan  darling,  Independency, 
establish  its  "  beautifying  presence"*  upon  their  crum- 
bling fragments.  '*  As  the  hangings  are  made  fit  for  the 
house,"  said  the  sapper  and  miner  Cartwright,  ''  so  the 
Commonwealth  must  be  made  to  agree  with  the  Church, 
and  the  government  thereof  with  her  government."! 

"  Syllables  govern  the  world,"  said  old  Selden,  who  in 
many  things  agreed  with  the  Puritans ;    though  as  a  philo- 
sopher  he  laughed   at  their  eccentricities.     If  they  could 
teach  the  people  syllables,  they  could  teach  them  a  creed  ; 
and  if  a  creed  in  religion,  why  they  could   teach  them  a 
creed  in  politics  too.     Charles  I.  comprehended   this  game 
well  enough,  as  his  pregnant  line,  written  in   Carisbrooke 
castle,  expressively  proves.     "  The  crown  is  crucified  with 
the  creed."!     His  nobility  comprehended  it  as  fully,  as  the 
Earl  of  Dorset's  speech  on  Prynne's  libellous  book,  proves 
also.       "  Though  you  seemed,  by  the  title  of  your   book,  * 
to  scourge  stage-plays,  yet  it  was  to  make   the  people   be- 
lieve  that  there    was  an    apostacy    in    the    magistrates."^ 
And  even  King  James  saw  it,  when  that  sentence  dropped 
from   him  at  Hampton   Court,    which    has    so   often  been 
referred  to,  as   an  evidence  of  the  easy  grace  wiih  which 
he    inhaled    Episcopal    flattery.       "  No   bishop,"    said  he, 
"  no   king."     And    thus,    exclaim    Puritan    commentators, 
the  wily  prelates  caught  him  with  their  sycophantic  guile. 
Not  so.     King  Jamie   had  all  the  shrewdness  of  a  Scotch- 
man, if  he  did  sometimes  exhibit  the  fooleries  of  a  pedant. 2' 
His  rapid   conversion   to  Episcopacy  never  surprised  me. 
He  divined  the  end  of  such  concessions  as  were  demanded 
of  him  ;  and  saw  that  he  would  have  no  peace  from  one  ra- 
pacious claim  after  another,  till   he  laid  at  the  feet  of  his 

21  See  Note  21. 

"*  Vide  Puritan  Oath,  No.  iii.  t  Maddox  Vind.  pp.  211,  212. 

t  Harris's  Charles  I.  p.  126.  §  Rushworth's  Col.  ii.  239. 


34  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURIJANS. 

dictatorial  suppliants  his  royal  crown.*  And  this  same 
divination  of  the  end,  too,  made  him,  I  doubt  not,  talk 
more  grandiloquently  of  the  prerogatives  of  crowned  heads, 
than  his  secret  good  sense  justified.  Fear  naturally  in- 
clines us  to  buttress  that  portion  of  an  edifice  we  believe 
most  liable  to  be  assaulted.  So  he  bolstered  up  royalty, 
with  all  his  might,  as  did  also  his  successor  ;  and  in  their 
just  fears,  I  can  find  an  extenuation  for  much  of  the  intol- 
erance, for  which  they  have  been  so  coarsely  upbraided. 

And  the  end  which  the  Puritans  did  finally  lay  hold  on, 
and  the  manner  in  which  they  rode  down  Episcopalians,  and 
rode  round  Presbyterians  to  reach  it,  satisfies  me  com- 
pletely, that  that  end  was  foreseen,  (in  hope  at  least,)  long 
before  they  attained  the  prize  of  their  calling.  Nations  are 
not  born  in  a  day.  The  Puritans  expected  to  struggle  long, 
patiently,  and  in  Macedonian  phalanx,  as  their  stringent 
oath  demonstrates.!  They  knew,  moreover,  that  their 
final  object  might  cost  more  than  their  own  unassisted 
efforts  could  accomplish.  It  did.  They  were  obliged 
to  court  the  alliance  of  sectaries  of  every  name,  and, 
finally,  of  the  Presbyterians  of  Scotland.  The  united 
parties  triumphed.  **  It  was  the  union  of  the  three  kinds 
of  Puritans,  above  mentioned,  which  gave  the  Parliament 
the  victory  in  the  civil  war  which  followed."!  And, 
then,  when  the  Presbyterians,  imagining  themselves  the 
stronger  portion  of  the  "  Holy  Alliance,"  supposed  that 
they  would  be  chiefly  benefited,  and  that  their  polity  would 
be   ascendant  in   church   and  state,  lo  !    they  found   them- 

*  Compare  his  own  speech. — Fuller's  Ch.  Hist.  iii.  189.  It  is  fuller, 
and  even  pathetic,  in  the  Phenix,  i.  169,  170.  No  one  should  speak, 
harshly  of  him,  who  could  speak  so  tenderly  and  beautifully  of  a  mother. 

t  "  They  proceeded  with  caution  :  they  never  submitted  any  pro- 
position to  the  House,  calculated  to  disclose  their  real  sentiments,"  &c. — 
Lathbury,  112. 

t  Encyc.  Americana,  x.  431. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  35 

selves  foiled  by  the  arts  of  that  serpent,  which  ''  was  more 
subtle  than  any  beast  of  the  field."  Their  disappointment 
amounted  to  agony,  and  vented  itself  in  dolorous  groans  ; 
as  the  Gangraena,  (oh,  Puritanism,  what  a  cankering 
name  !)  the  Gangraena  of  Thomas  Edwards  manifests — an 
echo  of  which,  in  some  of  its  purulent  statements,  has  not 
yet  died  away:  witness  Hetherington's  History  of  the  West- 
minster Assembly.  Take  this  sample,  from  a  multitude, 
of  the  character  of  the  "  Dissenting  Brethren,"  as  he,  high- 
church-wise,  cognominates  them.  "  The  answer  of  the  As- 
sembly is  expressed  in  somewhat  sharper  terms,  than  any  of 
their  preceding  papers ;  which  is  not  surprising,  consider- 
ing the  disingenuous  and  evasive  conduct  of  the  Independent 
party,  and  it  certainly  exposes  their  duplicity  in  a  manner 
altogether  unanswerable."^'^  * 

A  word  upon  the  thoroughness  with  which  the  Puritans 
did  their  work.  They  were  root  and  branch  men,  whose 
favorite  text  was,  "  not  a  hoof  shall  be  left  behind."  They 
were  the  radicals  and  destructives  of  their  day.~^  t  It  was  not 
enough  for  them  to  annihilate  offices,  they  must  cut  off 
heads  also.  The  blood  of  Strafford,  and  Laud,  and  Charles 
I.,  will  stain  their  annals  forever.  They  may  try  to  cast  its 
guilt  from  themselves,  and  sprinkle  it  upon  the  politicians. 
But  politicians  might  repay  the  compliment  with  interest ; 
for  probably  politicians  would  never  have  dreamed  of  succeed- 
ing against  the  State,  if  Puritan  ecclesiastics  had  not  begun 
upon  the  Church ;  and  if  they  did  use  them  for  their  own 

22  See  Note  22.  23  g^g  ^^^6  23. 

*  Hetherington's  Hist.  p.  193. 

t  The  wits  of  the  day  thus  described  them : 

"  Pluto,  beware,  to  thee  they  come. 
When  here  their  work  is  done  : 
For  they'll  break  loose,  and  beat  up  drum, 
And  storm  thee  in  thy  throne." 

Fhcenix  Britannicus,  i.  180. 


36  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

ends,  they  after  a  while  were  nothing  loath,  and  worked 
marvellously  free  in  their  harness. ^^^  jt  ^y\\\  never  answer, 
therefore,  for  the  Puritan  ministers  to  resist  the  imputation 
of  bloodguiltiness.  It  is  one,  and  but  one,  of  their  unfortu- 
nate imitations  of  Rome ;  which  says  she  never  takes  away 
life,  she  only  excommunicates  heretics.  True,  but  those 
whom  she  condemns  as  heretics,  the  State  forthwith  con- 
demns (when  it  dare)  to  the  stake  ;  and  if  we  must  burn  in 
an  Auto  da  Fe,  it  matters  little  who  kindles  the  fagots. 
The  Puritan  ministers  preached  down  Strafford,  and  Laud, 
and  Charles;  and  Puritan  emissaries  of  state  dragged  them 
to  the  block. 

And  so  it  was,  afterwards,  as  we  shall  by  and  by  see,  in 
New  England.  Cesium  non  animum  mutant,  qui  trans  mare 
currunt.  "  They  quickly  began  to  do  those  things  them- 
selves, for  which  they  had  accused  others,"  says  plaintive 
Robert  Barclay.*  The  Puritan  Vatican  at  Boston  is- 
sued bulls  against  Barclay's  brethren,  and  a  Puritan  gov- 
ernor imbrued  his  hands  in  their  blood.  And,  what  seems 
most  remarkable,  it  was  a  monarch,  and  a  monarch  de- 
scended from  one  whose  life  Puritan  violence  had  short- 
ened, who  arrested  their  violence  in  this  far  off  land. 
Charles  II.  interfered,  and  the  gallows  saw  no  more  quivering 
Quakers.  The  same  king  it  was,  too,  (laughed  at,  sneered 
at,  and  denounced  as  he  has  been  a  thousand  times,  by  Puri- 
tans,) who  put  an  end  to  what  they  never  thought  it  necessa'ry 
to  blot  from  the  statute-book,  the  infernal  law  de  heretico 
comhurendo.  Who  would  believe,  that  such  a  law's  flaminor 
terrors  could  have  been  forgotten  by  the  advocates,  in  theory 
at  least,  of  free  and  unlimited  toleration  1  But  so  it  was. 
A  heretic  could  have  been  burned  at  the  stake  till  the  year 
1677. t  "  Upon  which  Blackstone  observes,  that  '  in  one 
^  See  Note  24. 

*  Preface  to  Apology,  p.  vii.  • 

t  Christian  Obsen-er,  American  edition,  .\iv.,  399. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  37 

and  the  same  reign,  our  lands  were  delivered  from  the  slavery 
of  military  tenures,  our  bodies  from  arbitrary  imprisonment 
by  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  and  our  minds  from  the  tyranny 
of  superstitious  bigotry,  by  demolishing  this  last  badge  of 
persecution  in  the  English  law.'  "*  Nor  was  that  quite  all.  I 
cannot  refrain  from  adding  something  further  from  Mr.  Glad- 
stone; since  on  but  the  next  page  he  says,  "  We  find,  howev- 
er, some  curious  facts  in  the  history  of  the  reign  of  Charles  II. 
It  was  then  that  the  Earl  of  Granard  procured  for  the  Puri- 
tans of  Ireland,  a  pension  of  500^.  annually  from  govern- 
ment ;  and  in  1672  the  king  issued  an  order  for  pensions  of 
50Z.  and  100/.  yearly  to  many  of  the  nonconformist 
ministers."! 

So  then  the  abolition  of  death  by  fire,  of  military  tenures, 
and  the  passage  of  an  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  were  the  bright 
visions  of  heads,  which  Puritans  would  once  have  cleft  from 
their  kindred  shoulders ;  and  the  praise  of  lavishing  gratuities 
on  those  whose  principles  had  shed  his  father's  blood,  and 
deluged  his  native  country  with  misery,  belongs  to  one,  whom 
Puritan  anathemas  would  have  hurled  with  Judas  to  his  own 
place.  Oh,  how  fitly  did  the  Patriarch  David  say,  "  Let  us 
fall  now  into  the  hand  of  the  Lord ;  let  me  not  fall  into  the 
hand  of  man."  There  may  be  mercy  in  the  day  of  judg- 
ment, for  those  who  could  never  find  it  here. 

Before  concluding  this  letter,  it  may  be  well  to  settle 
one  point,  which  should  be  borne  in  mind,  in  all  my  com- 
ments on  Puritan  display  of  principle  and  conduct.  It  is 
this.  The  Puritans  consisted,  as  Lathbury  says,J  of  three 
distinct  parties :  the  moderate  Puritans,  who  never  left  the 

*  Gladstone's  State  and  Church,  4th  edition,  ii.  231. 

t  For  another  specimen  of  Charles  IPs  liberality,  see  Mass.  Hist. 
Coll.  2d  ser.  ii.  266.  He  gave  Dr.  Owen  a  thousand  guineas,  "to  dis- 
tribute among  those  who  had  suffered  most  by  the  late  severities."  And 
yet  his  recompense  was,  to  be  called  "  a  profligate  tyrant." 

t  History  English  Episcopacy,  pp.  54,  55. 
3 


38  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

Church,  the  Presbyterians,  and  the  Brownists.^s  Bat  it  is  from 
the  most  violent  grade  of  the  three,  that  our  New  England 
Puritans  have  descended  :  I  mean  the  Brownists.  I  well 
know,  that  this  is  a  most  touchy  and  ire-provoking  point  in 
Puritan  story.*  The  object  of  their  American  apologists  is 
studiously  to  shov.',  that  the  New  England  Puritans  were  de- 
scended from  the  Independents ;  and  from  those  who  were 
placable  and  tolerant,  as  they  maintain  Robinson  of  Leyden 
was.  Mr.  Young,  the  compiler  of  the  Chronicles,  whom  I 
often  quote,  knows  well  enough,  that  to  claim  some  of  the 
Puritans  as  his  ecclesiastical  ancestry,  would  be  to  boast  a 
pedigree  that  would  do  him  no  honor.  And  so  he  warily  en- 
ters \\\Q  caveat,  that  the  Plymouth  Puritans  (alas  for  Boston, 
Salem,  and  New  Haven !)  are  the  only  ones  who  merit  the 
name  of  "  Pilgrim. "f  But  the  demurrer  will  not  save  his 
precarious  cause.  Let  his  claim  be  granted ;  the  Plymouth 
"pilgriirs"  are  the  direct  descendants  of  Robinson's  con- 
gregation, as  no  New  Englander  will  deny.  But  Robinson 
left  England,  as  Neal,  (who  was  rebuked  by  Dr.  Watts,  for 
not  having  "mollified"  some  of  his  "  relations"  of  New 
England  history,)!  as  Neal  and  Belknap  both  freely  admit, 
*'  a  rigid  Brownist."^^  <J  And  that  if /ie  changed,'^''  his  congre- 
gation did  not,  and  probably  would  not,  his  earnest  farewell 

25  See  Note  25.  "  See  Note  26.  27  gge  Note  27. 

*  It  cost  poor  Britton  a  terrible  flagellation  to  say  as  much  two  hun- 
dred years  ago.  And  his  pocket  would  have  smarted,  too,  had  it  not 
been  empty. — Savage's  Winthrop,  i.  2S9,  and  note.  Mass.  Hist.  Coll. 
3d  ser.  iii.  81.  Had  I  seen  Mr.  Punchard's  History  of  Congregation- 
alism sooner,  I  might  have  been  saved  some  trouble.  Punchard  is  not 
anxious  to  mince  the  matter ;  and  when  he  speaks  of  Congregationalism 
"in  its  embodied  form,"  Brown's  name  is  the/rsf  he  mentions,  p.  243. 
Praise  to  his  honesty ! 

t  Chronicles,  p.  88,  note. 

X  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  series,  v.  201. 

§  Neal's  New  England,  i.  73.    Belknap's  Biography,  ii.  176. 


I 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  39 

address  to  them  absolutely  demonstrates.  "  I  must  also 
advise  you,"  is  his  parting  counsel — the  very  end  of  it  as 
given  in  Neal  and  Belknnp — "to  abandon,  p.void,  and  shake 
off  the  name  of  Brovvnist.  'Tis  a  mere  nick-name,  and  a 
brand  for  the  making  religion,  and  the  professors  of  it, 
odious  to  the  Christian  world."  Now,  than  this  address,  no 
higher  testimony^  can  possibly  be  given  :  it  is  from  one  of 
their  own  company,  and  it  is  unsolicited.  It  is  a  "  freer  pro- 
fession," by  far,  than  that  under  which  they  beguiled  Charles 
I.  out  of  a  charter;  which,  by  their  own  construction  of 
it,  embraced  "  the  power  of  Parliament,  King's  Bench, 
Common  Pleas,  Chancery,  High  Commission  and  Star- 
chamber,  and  ALL  OTHER  COURTS  OF  England  !"*  And, 
like  that  charter,  it  fastens  upon  them  a  character  as  inde- 
lible as  the  brand  of  the  actual  cautery.  They  cannot 
escape  it.  They  are  implored  not  to  be  Brownists,  at  the 
very  moment  they  are  preparing  to  plant  themselves  on 
American  soil.  Brownists  they  were,  therefore,  to  that 
ultimate  hour  of  their  European  existence;  and  that,  coun- 
selled as  they  might  be,  they  never  departed  from  one  of 
Brownism's  worst  peculiarities,  its  utter  exclusiveness,  let 
their  American  existence,  a  Presbyterian  being  witness,  sub- 
stantiate.t  The  name,  indeed,  of  Brownism  was  abandoned  ; 
(they  complied  with  Robinson's  charge  in  the  letter ;)  but 
its  spirit — alas  its  spirit !  even  at  this  distant  day,  do  not  its 
vipers  come  out  of  many  a  heat  to  fasten  on  apostolic 
hands?     I  here  allude,   among  other   things,  to  the  harsh 

*  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  ser.  iii.  84.  See  also  Prince's  Annals,  p.  57,  in 
Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  ser.  vii.,  after  p.  188. 

t  "What  tenets  are  held  by  the  Independents  of  New  England? 
They  reckon  all  Reformed  Churches,  except  themselves,  profane  and  un- 
clean." Ross's  View  of  all  Religions,  pp.  390,  391.  In  perfect  con- 
formity with  this,  I  find  Baillie,  another  Presbyterian,  speaking  of  the 
"  bold  wipes"  which  they  give  "  to  all  the  Reformed  Churches."  Baillie 
was  a  member  of  the  Westminster  Assembly. — Baillie's  Letters,  &c.,  i. 
420,  Edinburgh  Edition,  1775. 


40  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

assaults  upon  the  present  Bishop  of  Connecticut,  for  a 
charge  delivered,  in  the  ordinary  course  of  duty,  to  the 
clergy  of  his  own  diocese — a  prelate  who  has  meekness 
enough,  (if  it  could  be  imputed  to  them,)  to  make  amiable 
even  reviewers  in  the  testy  *'  New  Englander." 

P.  S. — With  writers  like  Punchard  to  deal  with,  some 
of  my  labor  might  have  been  spared  altogether  ;  for,  on 
further  examination,  I  find  him  yielding  the  contested  point, 
without  a  struggle.  He  explicitly  says,  "  it  is  evident  from 
this  account  of  Brownism,  that,  in  its  essential  features,  it 
corresponded  with  Congregationalism,  as  since  established 
in  New  England."  (History  of  Cong.,  p.  248.)  So  the 
Hon.  F.  C.  Gray  admits  it.  He  says,  in  good  round  terms, 
"  Our  ancestors  were  of  the  strictest  sect  of  the  Puritans." 
—Mass.  Hist.  Col.  3d  Ser.  viii.  198. 


LETTER  III. 


Having  thus  sketched,  as  my  limits  allow,  something  of 
the  origin  and  aim  of  Puritanism  in  England,  my  next  object 
will  be  to  offer  some  developments,  (development  being 
now  a  fashionable  doctrine,)  of  its  temper  and  treatment 
there.  Of  course  I  have  unavoidably  given  some  hints  of 
these  things,  in  an  oblique  way  already  ;  but  the  more  formal 
consideration  of  them  is  necessary  for  my  purpose,  before 
tracing  the  career  of  Puritanism  in  this  land  of  its  ultimate 
supremacy. 

The  credulity  of  human  nature,  respecting  those  who 
claim  the  honor  of  being  persecuted,  has  been  imposed  upon, 
most  egregiously,  by  statements  respecting  the  inoffensive- 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  41 

ness  of  the  Puritans,  and  the  ferocity  of  their  opponents. 
Take  such  a  specimen  as  the  following,  from  the  pen  of 
Dr.  Morse,  which  was  long  ago  reiterated  in  England,  in  his 
own  words,  (I  quote  an  English  edition  of  his  Geography  of 
1792,)  and  has  been  resounded  since  on  a  million  of  tongues. 
*'  During  the  successive  reigns  of  Henry  VIII.,  Mary,  Eliza- 
beth, and  James  1.,  the  Protestants,  and  especially  the  Puri- 
tans, were  the  objects  of  bloody  persecution,  and  thousands 
of  them  were  either  inhumanly  burnt,  or  left  more  cruelly 
to  perish  in  prisons  and  dungeons."  (Geog.  p.  150.)  Could 
any  thing  well  be  more  disingenuous,  or  artful,  than  this? 
Why,  under  the  fury  of  the  ''  bloody  Mary,"  but  277*  are  said 
to  have  been  put  to  death.  And  yet,  here  are  Protestants 
and  Puritans  identified;  the  Romish  violence  which  perse- 
cuted the  one  is  represented  as  persecuting  the  other  ;  while 
in  suffering,  the  Puritans  have  an  ''especial"  pre-eminence, 
and  of  course  in  the  number  of  their  noble  army  of  martyrs.-^ 
It  inevitably  follows,  that  Puritans  have  endured  far  more, 
as  Puritans,  from  the  Church  of  England,  than  Protest- 
ants have  endured,  as  Protestants,  from  the  Church  of 
Rome.  And  if  Papal  Rome  may  lawfully  be  detested  and 
execrated.  Episcopal  England  may  be  much  more  so.^^  Yes, 
this  is  the  genuine  result  at  which  Puritan  historians  aim. 
Read  Neal  on  the  Puritans,  or  Bogue  and  Bennet's  History 
of  Dissenters,  and  if  you  do  not  hate  poor  Ap.  Laud  worse 
than  the  worst  of  all  the  Popes,  it  is  because  an  adept  in  his 
art  is  unable  to  prejudice  you.^"  For,  as  to  recklessness  of 
statement,  Dr.  Morse,  with  his  thousands  of  Puritans 
slaughtered  by  Elizabeth  and  by  James,  (he  leaves  the  two 
Charleses  entirely  out  of  his  category,)  does  not  much  exceed 
the  Puritan  annalist.     As  to  accuracy  in  numbers,  Neal  can 


28  See  Note  28.  29  g^e  Note  29.  ^^  See  Note  30. 

*  Grier's  Defence  of  his  reply  to  Bishop  Milner,  p.  388. 


42  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

assuredly  match  him  ;  for  he  can  magnify  one  into  a  hundred. ^^ 
And  as  to  dexterity  in  glozing  over  an  awkward  fact,  he 
could  represent  a  sacrilegious  assault  upon  the  tomb  of  an 
Ap.  of  Canterbury,  and  the  tossing  of  its  bones  upon  a 
dunghill,  as  a  bare  ''  removal "  of  those  venerable  relics 
(Parker's  not  Laud's)  *'  by  a  private  gentleman."*  No 
wonder  the  world  should  suppose,  that  Puritans  have  per- 
ished by  hundreds  and  by  thousands,  rather  than  in  a  ratio 
one  hundred  times  lower,  and  that  they  should  have  so  per- 
ished, with  an  innocence  as  stainless  as  that,  with  which  a 
Puritan  apologist  w'ould  whiten  a  dastardly  violator  of  the 
sacred  sleep  of  the  dead. 

All  this  is  very  possible,  and  very  successful  too,  so  far  as 
America  is  concerned ;  for  here  there  are  few  indeed,  who 
so  much  as  suspect  that  there  is  aught  but  poetry  or  pathos 
in  the  departure  of  the  Puritans  from  Europe,  and  their  es- 
tablishment in  ''  these  goincrs  down  of  the  sun."  Let  an 
American  Churchman  ask,  where  he  may  find  an  antidote 
for  the  long  and  every  year  lengthened  story  of  Puritan  vi- 
cissitudes and  afflictions,  and  he  will  learn  with  astonish- 
ment, that  the  object  of  his  search  retreats  before  him  like 
the  fabled  cup  of  Tantalus.  Neal's  volumes,  with  a  train 
of  satellites  long  and  flaring  as  a  comet's  tail,  fill  the  whole 
field  of  vision  here.  One  might  roam  through  our  twenty- 
seven  dioceses,  and  scarcely  get  twenty-seven  answers  to  the 
question,  What  sort  of  a  bdok  is  Walker's  Sufferings  of  the 

31  See  Note  31. 

*  Maddox,  343,  344. — This  instance  was  so  flagrant,  Neal  had 
to  correct  it ;  but  he  tried  to  do  away  the  force  of  the  concession, 
by  adding  "  says  Mr.  Strype  :"  which  lie  knew  would  be  enough ; 
Strype  being  one  of  "  the  malignant  party." — Neal's  editor  puts  in, 
as  a  set-off,  that  some  twenty  Puritan  ministers  were  dug  up.  That 
is  nothing  to  the  purpose.  The  point  in  hand  was  Neal's  garbling ; 
and  we  see  how  wretchedly  he  mended  the  matter,  after  all. — Neal,  i. 
348. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  43 

Clergy,  or  Gauden's  Tears  and  Sighs  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land ?  The  works  of  Bp.  Maddox,  in  answer  to  Neal's  first 
volume,  and  of  Dr.  Zachary  Grey,  in  answer  to  the  rest,  are 
rarer  than  black  swans.  After  ten  years'  search,  a  single 
copy  of  Bp.  Maddox's  work  has  fallen  into  my  hands  ;  while 
the  work  of  Dr.  Grey  eludes  me  still.  I  never  saw  but  o?ie 
complete  copy  of 'both  ;  though  I  have  had  access  to  at  least 
a  hundred  thousand  volumes,  in  different  public  libraries. 

Where  an  American  work  can  be  pointed  out,  with 
which  to  combat  the  thickening  and  concentrating  appeals 
of  champions  of  Puritanic  grievances,  let  one  of  our  clergy 
ask,  and  the  meagerness  of  the  answers  he  obtains  must 
soon  make  him  sigh  and  wonder.  He  might  dig  for  the 
gold  of  Robert  Kidd  in  the  sands  of  Montauk,  with  about 
as  much  hope  as  to  search  for  Eleutherius  Enervatus,  for 
the  defence  of  our  Church  by  Jeremiah  Learning,  or  for  that 
copy  of  Leslie  on  Episcopacy,  to  which  is  annexed  the  grim 
tale  of  John  Checkley's  sorrows.  Checkley  published  that 
book  at  Boston,  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  years  ago.* 
But  little  guessed  he  of  the  perils  of  the  fateful  effort.  He 
was  sued  as  a  false  and  scandalous  libeller — found  guilty — 
amerced  in  a  heavy  fine — and  bound  with  two  strong  sure- 
ties, in  a  good  round  sum,  to  keep  the  peace;  and  this,  and 
all  this,  for  his  gracious  Majesty's  sake,  because  he  had  de- 
fended his  Majesty's  religion !  and  all  done  too,  beneath  the 
droppings  of  that  sanctuary  of  liberty,  Faneuil  Hall,  Boston  ! ! 
Tell  it  not  in  Gath — Episcopacy  was  once  sentenced  as  an 
outrageous  libel,  by  those  whose  forefathers  had  dared  to 
admonish  Parliament,  before  the  face  of  a  Tudor,  to  cast  it 
out  as  evil.t  Among  essays  no  longer  in  danger  of  the 
mace  of  a  Puritan  court  of  justice,  I  know  scarce  anything, 

*  Eliot's  Biog.  Diet,  pp.  105,  106. 

t  In  New  England,  barely  to  petition  for  the  repeal  of  a  hard  law, 
was  a  grievous  crime  against  the  state  ;  and  a  sin  against  God,  because 
it  violated  the  fifth  Commandment. — Sav.  Wint.  i.  301. 


44  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

but  the  papers  of  Dr.  Jarvis,  now  out  of  sight  in  the  forgot- 
ten Gospel  Advocate ;  but  which  are  well  deserving  of  per- 
petuation as  a  tract.  They  are  said  to  have  produced  no 
faint  impression,  respecting  the  partiality  of  Webster's  fa- 
mous Plymouth  Discourse,  for  which  they  were  a  designed 
corrective  ;  and  that  fact,  if  nothing  else,  should  redeem 
them  from  oblivion. 

So  much,  by  way  of  prelibation.  Let  us  now  enter  more 
into  detail ;  and  in  order  to  have  a  fair  view  of  our  subject, 
commence  with  the  prologue  of  the  Puritan  drama,  in  the 
time  of  Edward  VI.  And  here  my  readers  must  by  no 
means  forget  a  point,  w  hich  enters  deeply  into  this  defence 
of  Episcopacy,  (for  defence  it  truly  is,  and  not  voluntary  ag- 
gression ;  the  opinion  of  our  '*  Dissenting  Brethren" — to  use 
the  old  name  given  them  by  Presbyterians — to  the  contrary 
notwithstanding,)  which  is,  that  the  Puritans  were  at  first 
any  thing  but  a  homogeneous  or  harmonious  body.*  Puri- 
tanism was  an  affair  of  development,  systematic  enough  to 
suit  Dr.  Moehler.  True,  it  might  be  said  to  have  resembled 
the  teil-tree,  and  the  oak,  whose  substance  is  in  them  when 
they  have  no  leaves.  Nevertheless,  that  substance  did  not 
manifest  itself  in  full,  till  the  days  came,  when,  as  T  have 
said,  they  were  branch  as  well  as  root  men.  Puritanism 
was  justified,  at  first,  but  partially.  And  so  long  as  it  was 
so  justified,  and  by  men  who  would  not  justify  it  at  all 
lengths,  and  at  all  hazards,  it  was  connived  at,  or  borne 
with,  if  not  formally  tolerated. 

The  case  of  Hooper,  Bishop  of  Gloucester,  fully 
establishes  ray  assertion.  Hooper  had  fled  from  the  Six 
Articles  of  Henry  VHI.,  and  sought  repose  in  the  em- 
braces of  Bullinger,  minister  of  the  Protestants  at  Zu- 
rich, after  the  death  of  Zuinglius  in  battle.     Chameleon- 

*  Haweis'  Church  Histor}',  loose  enough  in  itself,  and  edited  by  a 
Puritan,  p.  115,  admits  this.— Printed  at  Worcester,  Mass.  1803. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  45 

like,  he  caught  the  color  of  his  ecclesiastical  associations  ; 
and  returned  with  a  passion  for  stark  simplicity.  He  pro- 
tested against  the  use  of  the  Episcopal  robes,  when  about  to 
be  consecrated ;  though  he  seems  not  to  have  had  a  single 
scruple  about  the  Episcopal  office,  and  was  as  firm  a  believ- 
er in  the  Apostolic  Succession,  as  later  Puritans  in  the  man- 
ifold powers  of  the  *'  Gifted  Brethren."  Possibly  he  was  a 
little  proud  of  his  plainness,  as  Plato  told  Diogenes  he  was 
of  his  rags.  For  sure  I  am,  I  have  seen  as  thorough  and  ex- 
clusive pride,  beneath  a  broad  brim,  wide  flaps,  and  a  strait 
collar,  as  under  the  satin  and  lace  of  a  Romish  prelate.  In- 
deed, as  a  shrew^d  writer  has  observed,  Satan  himself  re- 
gards, as  his  darling  sin,  "the  pride  that  apes  humility." 
But  be  the  matter  as  it  might,  the  King  (aye,  his  Majesty's 
own  self)  wrote  to  the  bishops,  to  endure  Hooper's  scruples. 
Fortunately,  the  bishops  induced  him,  after  earnest  expos- 
tulation, to  wear  habiliments  to  which  some  imagined  Pope- 
ry would  cleave  like  the  small-pox — at  least  to  wear  them 
on  public  occasions.  His  Lordship's  reverence  acted,  at 
other  times,  as  suited  his  own  fancy. 

Similar  favor  was  shown  old  Miles  Coverdale,  in  the 
reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  When  he  was  summoned  to  of- 
ficiate at  the  consecration  of  Abp.  Parker,  (the  prelate  with 
whose  name  the  Romanists  have  linked  their  rancid  parable 
of  the  Nag's  Head  tavern,)  he  shrunk  from  Episcopal  drape- 
ry, with  the  same  sensitiveness  which  had  afflicted  the  epi- 
dermis of  his  Rt.  Rev.  brother.  Well,  he  was  even  allowed, 
on  a  most  memorable  p/^6//c  occasion,  to  lay  his  robes  aside, 
and  appear  in  something  like  a  Calvinistic  gown.' 


# 


*  Mather  acknowledges  that  a  solitary  act  of  conformity  would  have 
saved  John  Cotton.  (See  Magnalia,  i.  237.)  And,  still,  the  man  who 
would  not  yield  in  one  minute  particular  himself,  afterwards  defended 
persecution  unto  blood.  Cotton  wrote  that  book,  whose  very  title  is 
blasphemous,  "  The  Bloody  Tenet  washed  and  made  white  in  the  Blood 
of  the  Lamb."     Such  was  Puritan  consistency;  and  such  were  the  men 

3* 


46  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

The  well-known  John  Fox,  author  of  the  Acts  and  Mon- 
uments, is  a  third  instance;  and  quite  sufficient,  (to  say 
nothing  of  Humphrey,  Perkins,  Stone,  Dod,  Rainolds,  &.C., 
the  last  honored  as  one  of  the  commission  to  make  a  new 
translation  of  the  Scriptures,)  to  show  that  the  policy  with 
which  the  Government  began  in  the  days  of  Hooper,  was 
still  pursued,  and  would  be  pursued,  so  long  as  similar  sub- 
jects only  required  discipline.  Fox  was  summoned  by  the 
Primate  of  all  England  and  Metropolitan,  to  subscribe  the 
Liturgy,  Articles,  and  Canons.  But  the  sturdy  old  noncon- 
formist thrust  a  New  Testament  into  his  face ;  and  said  he 
would  subscribe  that,  and  that  alone.  "  I  have  nothing," 
said  he,  "  in  the  Church,  but  a  prebend  at  Salisbury;  and 
much  good  may  it  do  you,  if  you  will  take  it  away  from  me."* 
This  was  very  bold  bearing  to  the  highest  magnate  in  the 
land;  and  doubtless  he  repented  for  it  at  his  leisure,  in  the 
dungeons  of  the  Tower.  Not  at  all.  He  died  quietly  in 
his  nest  ;t  for  nonconformist  though  he  were,  yet  an  out 
and  out  Puritan  he  was  not;  since,  says  Fuller,  "  he  never 
entered  a  church  without  expressing  solemn  reverence 
therein." 

But  the  whole  of  the  story  is  not  yet  told.  Ap.  Parker, 
a  haughty  prelatist,  and  Elizabeth,  a  queen  who  rebuked 
Parliaments   with  scanty  ceremony,   could  pitifully  endure 

who  complained  of  Archbishop  Laud's  policy  !  But  my  readers  will 
have  enough  more  on  this  point,  before  we  get  through. — ]\Iost  appositely 
has  Dr.  Dwight  expressed  his  opinion  about  the  opposition  of  the  Puritans 
to  ceremonies,  and  his  suspicion  of  some  concealed  motive  for  their  revo- 
lutionary conduct.  "  I  will  acknowledge,  also,  that  our  ancestors  were 
more  solicitous  about  the  surplice,  and  the  ceremonies,  than  iheir  import- 
ance requireiJ  ;  if,  indeed,  these  were  the  real  causes  of  their  solicitude." 
—Travels,  i.  161. 

*  Fullers  Church  History,  new  edition,  ii.  475. 

t  Neal,  utterly  at  a  loss  for  a  charitable  reason  to  account  for  the 
kindness  shown  Father  Fox  by  the  Government,  saj-s  they  were  afraid 
to  turn  him  out.     See  Maddox's  Vind.  pp.  144,  145  ;  and  Neal,  i.  236. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  47 

Fox's  vexatious  scruples ;  but  nonconformists  denounced 
him  for  his  moderation.  His  own  theological  kindred  be- 
came his  persecutors.  There  was  enough  of  church-leaven 
left  in^im,  to  spoil  him  for  a  headlong  partisan;  and  his 
severest  wound  came,  accordingly,  from  his  so-called 
friends.  A  son  of  Fox  had  returned  from  his  travels,  to 
enjoy  a  fellowship  at  Oxford  University.  Puritans,  who 
happened  to  be  in  the  majority  there,  (another  proof,  by  the 
way,  how  slow  the  Government  was  to  dislodge  them,)* 
forthwith  fastened  upon  him  the  label  of  Papist,  and  had 
him  hunted,  like  a  wild  beast,  from  the  University  pre- 
cincts. This  they  did,  that  the  poor  fond  father  might  be 
pierced  through  his  innocent  child.  Such  malignity  roused 
even  Fox's  placid  soul ;  and  in  a  long  letter  to  a  bishop,  he 
thus  remonstrates  against  the  spite  of  his  foes.  "■  It  has  al- 
ways, I  confess,  been  my  great  care,  if  I  could  not  be  service- 
able to  many  persons,  yet  not  knowingly  to  injure  any  one, 
and  least  of  all  those  of  Magdalen  Colleo-e.  I  cannot,  there- 
fore,  but  the  more  wonder,  at  the  turbulent  genius  which  in- 
spires iho^e  factious  Puritans  ;  so  that  violating  the  laws  of 
gratitude,  despising  my  letters  and  prayers,  disregarding  the 
intercession  of  the  President  himself,  [Humphrey,  unfortu- 
nately a  moderate  nonconformist  like  Fox,]  without  any 
previous  admonition,  or  assigning  any  cause,  they  have  ex- 
ercised so  great  tyranny  against  me  and  my  son.  Were  I 
one,  who,  like  them,  w^ould  be  violently  outrageous  against 
bishops  and  archbishops ;  or  join  myself  with  them,  that  is, 
would  become  mad,  as  they  are,  I  had  not  met  with  this 
severe  treatment.  Now,  because  quite  different  from 
them,  I  have  chosen  the  side  of  modesty  and  public  tran- 
quillity, hence,  the  hatred  they  have  for  a  long  time  con- 
ceived against  me,  is  at  last  grown  to  this  degree  of  bitter- 

*  The  Puritans  had  a  foothold,  it  seems,  at  Oxford.  So  also  had  they 
in  Cambridge.  Cotton  Mather  speaks  of"  Emanuel  College,  that  Semi- 
)iary  of  Puritans  in  Cambridge." — Magnalia,  i.  32.3. 


48  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

ness."  The  letter  was  in  Latin,  and  may  be  found  in  Fuller, 
with  some  pertinent  comments.  The  translation  above,  is 
from  the  Gen.  Historical  Diet,  of  Bernard,  Birch,  and  Lock- 
man,  vol.  V.  302,  303. 

Beside  such  testimony,  let  me  now  ask,  Who  then 
had  most  need  to  pray  for  deliverance  ''  from  envy,  ha- 
tred, malice,  and  all  uncharitableness," — the  Government,  or 
the  Government's  opponents;  who,  as  "Father  Fox"  said 
in  another  part  of  his  remonstrance,  would  never  desist,  till 
they  had  "  brought  all  things  into  Jewish  bondage?"  But  I 
need  not  enlarge  upon  a  point,  which  such  cases  as  have 
been  adduced  and  a  multitude  more,  all  conspire  to  illus- 
trate.* These  are  ample,  especially  when  associated  with  a 
communication  such  as  that  of  Sir  Francis  Walsingham, 
and  which  Dr.  Jarvis  has  most  appositely  quoted  from  Bur- 
net's Reformation,  vol.  ii.  (it  may  be  found  also  in  Collier, 
vii.  75,)  to  well  warrant  the  Dr.  in  his  conclusion,  "  that, 
with  regard  to  the  moderate  party  of  the  Puritans,  there  was 
the  greatest  disposition  in  the  rulers  of  the  Church  to  exer- 
cise indulgence."!  If  any  thing  then  be  wanting,  it  is  sup- 
plied by  a  fact  he  next  advances.  Queen  Elizabeth's  offer, 
(though  Neal,  i.  177,  perversely  represents  her  as  more 
concerned  for  the  Papists  than  the  Puritans,)  to  acquiesce  in 
an  omission  of  the  three  superlatively  dismal  exactions,  viz. 
kneeling  at  the  Communion,  wearing  the  surplice,  and  using 
the  sign  of  the  cross  in  Baptism  ;  provided^  there  were  due 
conformity,  in  things  not  quite  so  tremendously  insupport- 
able.f  Yes,  even  old  Queen  Bess  was  most  politely  concilia- 
tory ;  though  her  temperament,  as  a  Tudor,  was  of  course 
imperious,  and  though,  with  other  ladies,  she  might  have 

*  Even  Bishop  Burnet  does  not  spare  them,  though,  as  his  castigator 
Mr.  Higgons  shows,  he  was  under  no  small  temptation  to  pass  their  fail- 
ures over  lightly. — Higgons  against  Burnet,  2d  edition,  1727,  pp.  30,  31. 

i  Gospel  Advocate,  ii.  62,  63. 

\  See  Collier,  vii.  16. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  49 

been  expected  to  be  somewhat  punctilious  as  to  attitudes 
and  dresses.  Or,  if  such  a  fact  require  confirmation  strong 
as  proof  of  Holy  Writ,  nothing  more  could  be  necessary 
than  the  shrewd  proposition  of  Lord  Burleigh,  that,  if  the 
Puritans  did  not  like  the  Church  Liturgy,  they  should  agree 
among  themselves  upon  one  they  could  like ;  or  the  liberal 
concessions  of  Charles  IL,  just  preceding  the  Savoy  Con- 
ference.* 

In  view  of  such  evidence,  a  man  must  be  voracious  in 
appetite,  and  fastidious  in  digestion,  beyond  all  reasonable 
dyspeptic  liberty,  if  he  could  still  demand  proof  of  the  len- 
ient and  courteous  disposition  of  the  Government  towards 
all  who  were  moderate  and  gentlemanly,  in  their  objections 
and  petitions  for  reform. ^^  That  they  treated  a  hirsute  and 
greedy  generation,  which  would  have  handled  them  and 
their  institutions  "  with  the  paw  of  the  lion  and  the  paw  of 
the  bear,"  with  less  amenity,  may  not  be,  possibly,  among 
the  world's  seven  wonders.  ''  It  is  easy  to  talk  of  tol- 
eration," says  the  Quarterly  Review,  "  and  say  that  the 
Church  should  have  tolerated  these  schismatics :  they 
WOULD  NOT  TOLERATE  THE  Church."33  f  And,  again,  on 
the  self-same  page,  "  They  taught  that,  '  If  princes  hinder 
them  who  seek  for  the  discipline,  they  are  tyrants  both  to 
the  Church  and  ministers;  and,  being  so,  may  be  deposed 
by  their  subjects.'  Thus  completely,"  it  adds,  and  let 
modern  Puritans  weigh  the  observation  well,  '*  did  Popery 
and  Puritanism  meet  in  the  political  deductions,  from  their 
presumed  infallibility."!  ^^  great  and  so  candid  a  man  as 
Sully,  and   as  good  a  Protestant    as  their    hottest   zealot, 

^2  See  Note  32.  =*3  gg^  ^ote  33. 

*  Cardwell's  Conferences,  286,  &c.  Short's  Church  History,  ii. 
230,  231. 

t  Vol.  X.  96. 

t  Compare  Featley  on  the  Anabaptists,  edit,  6th,  p.  35. 


50  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

thought  England  was  well  and  happily  provided  for,  by  such 
a  Church  as  he  saw  there.  lie  attended  its  services,  when 
he  visited  England  on  a  diplomatic  mission.  He  did  not 
hesitate  to  declare,  "  that  if  the  French  Protestants 
had  retained  the  same  advantages  of  order  and  decen- 
cy, there  would  at  that  time  have  been  many  thousand 
more  Protestants  in  France."*  But  that  which  was  order 
and  decency,  in  this  great  man's  eyes,  was  confusion  and 
pollution — I  must  appeal  to  Fox  again — in  the  eyes  of  a  mad 
faction.  They  could  see  no  beauty  in  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, why  they  should  desire  her  ;  and  their  watchword  was 
that  of  the  children  of  Edom,  in  the  day  of  Jerusalem,  Raze 
it,  raze  it,  even  to  the  foundation  thereof.     (Ps.  cxxxvii.  7.) 

Could  any  profit  ensue,  from  attempts  at  further  and  fuller 
conciliation  with  men  of  a  temper  like  this  ?  If  demonstra- 
tion upon  demonstration  is  wanted,  let  us  see  what  results 
did  actually  follow,  from  the  attempts  which  were  made  in 
fact. 

What,  for  example,  was  the  reply  to  Elizabeth's  tender 
of  compromise,  respecting  the  three  points  which  were  as 
shocking  as  the  three  heads  of  Cerberus  to  an  ancient  Pa- 
gan ?  With  a  tact  at  identification  and  interpretation,  mo- 
nopolized by  themselves,  they  adopted  the  language  of  the 
Israelites  to  Pharaoh,  Ne  iingiilam  esse  relinquendain — not 
a  hoof  shall  be  left  behind.!  Historians  generally,  I  believe, 
quote  the  Latin  ;  but  whether  it  is  their  own,  or  not,  I  can- 
not say.  If  the  Puritans  themselves  used  it,  so  as  not  to 
offend  ears  polite.  Bishop  Milner  should  have  adduced  them, 
in  his  "  End  of  Controversy,"  to  prove  that  miracles  have 
not  ceased.     Or,  if  another  specimen  illustrating  their  capa- 

*  Quarterly  Review,  x.  94. 

t  It  is  admitted  by  Bancroft,  that  they  denied  the  propriety  of  every 
vestment  and  every  ceremony.  And  Fuller  cites  a  case,  where  a  minis- 
ter was  arraigned  for  saying  even  the  Gloria  Patri. — Bancroft's  America, 
i.  278.     Fuller's  Ch.  Hist.  iii.  483. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  51 

bilities  in  pure  vernacular  is  wished,  a  parallel  can  be  quo- 
ted from  that  matchless  Puritan  classic,  the  "Anatomy  of 
the  Service-Booke."  "  As  they  are  altars  of  Baal,  erected 
and  maintained  by  Baalites  and  Balaamites,  so  they,  and  all 
their  ceremoniall  accoutrements,  and  the  Service-Booke  it- 
self, are  an  abomination :  witness  that  place  of  Exodus  al- 
ready quoted,  'The  abominations  of  the  Egyptians  shall  we 
sacrifice  to  Jehovah  our  God?'  saith  Moses  to  Pharaoh. 
'  It  is  not  meet  so  to  do.'  "*  The  Puritans,  says  Toulmin, 
(Neal's  editor,  who,  if  possible,  is  less  candid  than  Neal 
himself:  for  the  prejudices  of  both  a  Unitarian  and  a  Bap- 
tist were  welded  together  in  him,)  had  "  some  intervals  of 
ease,"  even  under  Elizabeth's  government.!  Was  it  during 
"  intervals  of  ease,"  that  their  harassed  souls  relieved  them- 
selves with  such  jeux  d' esprit  as  this  ? 

What  state  of  things  did  Lord  Burleigh's  astute  propo- 
sal bring  to  light?  Why,  to  liturgy-making  they  went,  with 
characteristic  vehemence.  It  seems  the  wary  statesman 
had  asked  them,  if  they  wanted  to  annihilate  the  Church 
liturgy.  Oh  no :  they  only  wanted  the  old  one  remod- 
elled. Let  my  readers  note  here,  that  the  Puritans  con- 
fessed themselves,  as  Baxter  said  for  himself  long  after- 
wards, "not  averse  to  a  settled  form. "I  Well,  their  favorite 
model,  chiselled  and  squared  after  the  Geneva  pattern,  like 
Baxter's  "  Reformed  Liturgy"^^  presented  to  the  Savoy 
Conference,  was  ushered  into  light.  This  was  the  bantling 
of  the  first  classis.  Their  second  classis  were  displeased 
vvith  it,  to  such  a  merciless  extent,  that  they  altered  it  in  six 
hundred  particulars  !     The  third  classis  protested  against 

34  See  Note  34. 

*  The  Anatomy,  p.  17.  t  Neal,  i.  298,  note. 

I  Short's  Hist.  ii.  236. — Baxter's  Cure  of  Church  Divisions,  p.  176, 
etc.  2d  edit.  1670.  Indeed  his  Reformed  Liturgy  settles  the  question  as 
to  his  opinions. 


52  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

this,  and  declared  war  upon  it.  The  fourth  classis  were  not 
easier  to  please,  than  their  predecessors — asserted  their  own 
fancies,  and  fought  for  them,  pugnis  it  calcibus,  itnguibus  et 
rostro.  And  what  then  did  Lord  Burleigh  do?  Did  he 
cast  their  dissensions  into  their  teeth,  and  bestow  merited 
commendations  on  their  positive  and  negative  electricity, 
their  sparks  and  fire  ?  Not  quite.  Though  an  aristo 
crat,  and  a  Churchman,  he  bowed  them  out  of  doors  with  a 
courtier's  suavity.  "  Good  sirs,  when  you  can  agree  among 
yourselves,  the  Government  will  receive  your  proposals  with 
distinguished  consideration."  And  so,  says  Hammond, 
quaintly  but  pithily,  *'  the  dissenting  of  those  brethren, 
like  the  division  of  tongues  at  Babel,  was  a  fair  means  to 
keep  that  tower,  then,  from  advancing  any  higher.* 

How  did  they  requite  such  unwarlike  consideration  as 
this,  but  three  years  after  [15S8],  when  Spain's  Armada, 
with  its  furious  legions,  threatened  to  descend  on  England 
like  the  locusts  of  Joel,  and  make  "  ail  faces  crather  black- 
ness  ?"  Now  we  say,  now  surely,  horror  of  Pcpery,  innate 
and  unconquerable  in  a  Puritan  breast,  will  unite  them  with 
the  Powers  that  be  against  the  common  foe.  They  will 
forget  lighter  grievances,  in  the  perils  of  the  constitution. 
They  will  fight  for  Protestantism,  like  the  Scythians  for  the 
tombs  of  their  forefathers.  Alas,  it  might  not  be !  They 
detested  an  Episcopal  queen  for  England,  more  than  a  Ro- 
mish vicar  for  the  universe.  Plainly  and  sternly,  does  his- 
tory tell  the  shameful  tale  of  Puritan  disloyalty.  •'  Though," 
says  Carwithen,  "  the  Armada,  vauntingly  styled  the  in- 
vincible, was  confessedly  prepared  to  bring  England  back 
to  the  catholic  faith,  and  though  the  Romanists  in  England 
composed  a  formidable  body,  yet  Elizabeth  found,  that  her 
most  dangerous  enemies  were  not   among  her   Romish  sub- 

*  Hammond's  Works,  i.  359.  See  also  for  this  anecdote,  Fuller,  iii. 
48,78.     Collier,  vii.  16.     Maddox,  283. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  53 

jects.  In  this  time  of  common  danger,  the  Puritans  forgot 
their  antipathy  to  the  Papists,  and  were  indefatigable  in  dis- 
persing libels  against  the  Church  and  her  prelates."* 

And  what  benefit,  lastly,  flowed  from  the  concessions  of 
King  Charles  ?  The  four  months  which  were  allowed  for 
the  Savoy  Conference  debates,  were  wasted  to  no  purpose. 
Of  the  Magnus  Apollo  of  the  Puritans,  (Richard  Baxter,) 
the  candid  and  accurate  Mr.,  now  Bishop,  Short  says,  *' he 
earnestly  desired  peace ;  but  it  was  only  on  his  own  terms, 
and  he  would  concede  nothing  to  his  opponents."!  He 
did  not  remember  his  own  precious  rebuke,  in  other 
days,  to  the  Anabaptists  and  Independents,  when  illus- 
trating the  perils  and  excesses  of  sectarism.  "  And  all 
this  began  in  unwarrantable  separation,  and  too  much 
aggravating  the  faults  of  the  churches,  and  common  people 
and  Common  Prayer  Book,  and  ministry ;  which  indeed 
were  none  of  them  without  faults  to  be  lamented  and  amend- 
ed. But  they  thought,  that  whatever  needed  amendment, 
required  their  obstinate  separation  [Baxter's  own  italics]  ; 
and  that  they  were  allowed  to  make  odious  any  thing  that 
was  amiss. "§ 

O  that  the  Lord  the  gift  would  gie  us, 
To  see  ourselves  as  ithers  see  us  ! 

Baxter  could  easily  perceive  that  the  sectaries  needed 
amendment,  rather  than  the  Prayer  Book  with  its  "  ceremo- 
niall  accoutrements."  But  that  Richard  Baxter  needed  a 
similar  amendment,  rather  than  the  same  venerable  volume, 
was  an  invisible  impossibility.     No :  all  the  sectaries,  with 

*  History  of  the  Church  of  England,  ii.  136.  Soames'  Elizabeth,  p. 
370.     British  Critic,  xiii.  34.     Grant's  English  Church,  i.  456. 

t  Short's  Hist.  ii.  249. — He  and  his  party  begged,  says  L'Estrange, 
like  sturdy  cripples,  with  cudgels  in  their  hands. — Holy  Cheat,  3d  edi- 
tion, p.  81. 

§  Calamy's  Life  of  Baxter  abridged,  i.  95. 


54  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

Anabaptists  and  Independents  to  flank  them,  were  utterly 
wrong  on  this  hand,  and  the  Bishops,  with  all  their  formula- 
ries and  ceremonies,  were  utterly  wrong  on  that.  There 
was  but  one  infallible  centre,  which  rested  on  the  shoulders 
of  Richard  Baxter  !  There  is  a  solitary  head  in  the  city  of 
seven  hills,  which  entertaineth  the  same  hallucination. 

But  be  all  this  as  it  may,  say  the  Puritans,  there  is  one 
thing  in  the  reign  of  King  Charles,  for  which  no  apology 
can  avail.  The  Act  of  Uniformity — O  the  Act  of  Uniform- 
ity, consummated  on  that  awful  day  of  the  month,  the  24th  of 
August,  when  the  Huguenots  were  massacred  in  France — 
that  direful,  desolating  act,  which  thrust  two  thousand  "  god- 
ly and  painfull  "  ministers  from  their  comfortable  livings, 
upon  a  cold  world's  charity — that  act  may  almost  or  quite 
resemble  one,  which  cannot  be  forgiven  in  this  world  or  in 
the  world  to  come. 

This  act  wipes  out  all  which  Charles  ever  did,  or  could 
do,  a  thousand  times  told,  deserving  of  praise,  and  sends 
him  down  to  posterity,  on  Puritan  pages,  as  very  a  demon 
as  the  royal  assassin  of  the  Festival  of  St.  Bartholomew.  O 
when  one  sees  this,  it  were  enough  to  make  him  exclaim,  as 
did  the  great  prime  minister  Walpole,  when  somebody  want- 
ed to  read  him  history,  '  No,  no,  read  me  something  true.' 
It  seems  almost  impossible  to  believe,  a  priori,  that  the  truth 
respecting  this  matter  could  be  so  thoroughly  garbled,  or  so 
effectually  kept  out  of  sight,  as  it  has  been.  Two  thousand 
''  godly  and  painfull  "  ministers  dispossessed  of  their  livings  ? 
Why,  the  Puritans  themselves  dispossessed  probably  ten 
thousand  of  the  ministers  of  the  Church  of  England.*  These 
two  thousand,  also,  were  interlopers — not  even  ecclesiastical 
squatters,  as  we  Americans  would  say — absolute  interlopers, 
who  had  driven  away  the  lawful  shepherds  of  the  flock,  and 
were  covering  themselves  with  the  fleece,  full  warmly.    The 

*  Walker's  Sufferings  of  the  Clergy,  Pt.  i.  p.  200. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  55 

ministers  of  the  Church  of  England  were  the  real  victims  of 
banishment  ;'-^^  and  the  Act  of  Uniformity  was  but  an  act  of 
simple  justice,  to  give  them  back  their  own.  Nor  would 
they  have  got  their  own,  if  the  Two  Thousand  had  not  been 
induced  to  listen  to  the  insidious  counsels  of  their  nominal 
enemies,  but  old  colleagues,  the  Papists.  ''  It  is  stated  that  the 
Catholics  secretly  .encouraged  the  Presbyterians  in  their  de- 
termination. That  part  of  the  court  which  was  under 
Catholic  influence,  persuaded  the  Presbyterians  to  continue 
firm,  and  that  either  the  act  would  be  modified,  or  the  King 
would  screen  them  from  its  effects."*  The  Romanists 
were  grievously  disappointed.  The  Act  of  Uniformity  in 
Charles's  day,  like  that  in  Elizabeth's  day,t  was  a  trium 
phant  overthrow  of  papal  machinations;  and  if  the  Puritans 
were  the  victims,  Elizabeth's  act  was  not  the  first,  nor 
Charles's  the  last,  by  which  they  have  suffered  from  an  un- 
holy dalliance  with  the  woman  in  scarlet.  Puritans  are,  by 
multitudes,  presumed  to  be  what  they  claim  to  be — the  re- 
motest opposites  of  Popery.  But  extremes  meet.|  Puritans 
and  Papists  united  in  the  reigns  of  former  English  sove- 
reigns, as  we  have  seen  them  united  in  this  century,  for  the 
downfall  of  Protestant  monarchs.     Jesuits  have  preached 

35  See  Note  35. 


*  Lathbury,  p.  324. — So  Collier,  vii,  454,  note.  And  all  is  easily 
explicable  upon  the  Romish  principle  of  action,  mentioned  by  Burnet. 
'•'  There  was  nothing  which  the  whole  Popish  party  feared,  more  than  an 
union  of  those  of  the  Church  of  England  with  the  Presbyterians." — Bur- 
net's own  Times,  i.  110,  edit.  1724. 

t  Lathbury,  p.  61. 

t  "  I  have  often  heard  some  wise  men  say,"  is  Archbishop  Laud's 
own  testimony,  "  that  the  Jesuit  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  the  precise 
party  in  the  Reformed  Churches,  agree  in  many  things,  though  they 
would  seem  most  to  differ.  And  surely  this  is  one,  &c." — Conference 
with  Fisher,  p.  81. 


L 


56  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

in  Puritan  pulpits,  to  prove  the  Liturgy  as  bad  as  the  Mass- 
Book  ;  and  Puritans  have  said  Amen*  Jesuits  have 
fouorht  Puritan  battles. t     Jesuits  have  fouo-ht  their  own  bat- 

a  s 

ties  against  Protestants,  and  Puritans  have  given  them  suc- 
cor. The  days  of  the  Irish  Massacre  must  be  interpreted 
by  those  of  the  Spanish  Armada. ^^  |  And  if  "  the  thing  that 
hath  been,  is  that  which  shall  be,  and  that  which  is  done,  is 
that  which  shall  be  done,"  (Eccl.  i.  9,)  such  apparent  con- 
trarieties may  exist  again.  They  may  indeed.  England's 
worst  enemies  are  not  the  Tractarians  of  Oxford.  If  her 
Church  falls,  it  will  be  because,  between  Dissenters  on  one 
side  and  Romanists  on  the  other,  she  has  sunk  beneath  the 
revival  of  old  conspiracies.  Herod  and  Pilate  became 
friends  to  crucify  the  world's  Redeemer.  She  may  be  cru- 
cified by  some  such  monstrous  combination,  when,  other- 
wise, she  might  live  till  time's  last  sands  shall  fall.^^  § 

A  few  thincrs  more,  and  this  sketch  will  end.  We  have 
seen  how  the  authorities  of  England  talked  with  Puritans  :  let 
us  compare  a  few  more  specimens  of  Puritan  curiosa  f elicit  as , 
with  the  style  of  lordlings,  monarchs,  and  queens.  Dr.  Jar- 
vis  has  preserved  some  striking  instances,  which  should  be 
laid  up  in  the  archives  of  every  defender  of  Episcopacy, 
against  the  hours  now  coming,  thick  and  fast,  when  it  will 

36  See  Note  36.  37  gge  Note  37. 


*  Romish  Fox  and  Sectarian  Firebrands,  pp.  97,  137,  183.  Dublin, 
1683. — "  The  disciples  of  Rome  and  of  Geneva  united  in  inveighing,  with 
the  utmost  bitterness,  against  the  English  Liturgy." — Blackstone's  Comm. 
iv.  50  or  51. 

t  DugJale,  564. 

X  Miller's  Phil,  of  Hist.  iii.  441.  Lingard,  x.  106,  1st  Amer.  ed.— 
Tytler's  Hist,  ii.  404-5.  Eikon  Basilike,  p.  100,  or  chap.  xii.  Swift's 
Works,  xiv.  71,  72.     Dugdale,  74,  76.     Leland's  Ireland,  iii.  136. 

§  Compare  South's  prophecy,  uttered  A.  D.  1662.  Sermons,  iii.  447, 
448.     Oxford,  1823. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  57 

be  necessary  to  tell  its  oppugners  to  look  at  home.  The 
conforming  clergy  were  styled  "petty  popes,  popelings,  an- 
tichrists, dumb  dogs,  idle  drones. "^^  Bishops  were  "  bawds 
to  all  kinds  of  sinners."  They  were  also  ''  presumptuous, 
paltry,  pestilent  usurpers,  cogging  and  cozening  knaves." 
They  would  "  lie  like  dogs,"  and  were  "  monstrous  ungodly 
wretches,  that,  to  maintain  their  own  outrageous  proceed- 
ings, mingle  heaven  and  earth  together  ;"  or  in  the  more 
graphic,  but  not  less  bitter  imitatives  of  the  New  Englander, 
provide  "  a  sacramental  way  to  hell."  The  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  was  "  a  very  antichristian  beast,  a  most  vile  and 
cursed  tyrant." ^^  The  Quakers  can  here  see  the  original 
of  that  habit  of  execrating,  which  so  often  applied  the  tre- 
mendous word  "  cursed"  to  them  in  after  days,  and  even 
under  the  solemn  forms  of  statute  law.  I  will  not  go  on  ; 
for  here  is  enough  to  nauseate  any  liberal  mind,  be  its  prin- 
ciples anti-episcopal  to  their  very  core.  Yet  it  is  a  meager, 
a  very  meager  tithe,  of  the  scum  which  might  be  gathered.* 
It  will  be  somewhat  hard  to  believe,  that  such  language 
was  not  accompanied  by  kindred  actions.  It  was  perhaps 
outstripped  by  those  who  spit  out  such  harpy-like  impurity. 
Yes,   clergymen  were  mobbed,   and    dragged,  even  out  of 

33  See  Note  38.  ^9  gee  Note  39. 

*  Much  of  the  scum  alluded  to  comes  from  the  tracts  of  Martin  Mar- 
prelate,  and  other  anonymous  publications.  These,  the  Puritans  often 
find  it  convenient  to  disclaim.  (Pierce's  Vindication, pp.  118,  119.)  But 
a  writer  in  the  Christian  Remembrancer  for  April,  1845,  keenly  remarks, 
that  anonymous  publications  were  a  truer  index  of  their  temper,  than  any 
others  ;  for  there  they  spoke  without  disguise,  and  less  fear  of  the  courts. 
He  shows,  too,  how  lame  their  excuse  for  throwing  off  the  authorship  of 
Martin,  when  his  tracts  had  failed.  The  Church  wits  answered  him  in 
his  own  style,  and  he  was  driven  off  the  ground.  Then,  as  a  living  dog 
is  better  than  a  dead  lion,  even  IMartin's  best  friends  disowned  him. — 
Christian  Remembrancer,  1845,  vol.  ix.  pp.  365,  405,  406.  See  also 
Fuller's  Church  History,  iii.  98. 


58  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

churches,  because  robed  in  surplices.  The  sacred  symbols 
of  the  Eucharist  were  swept  from  altars,*  about  to  be  sur- 
rounded by  peaceable  communicants. t  "Presbyteries,"  says 
Dr.  Jarvis,  ''  were  formed  in  every  part  of  the  kingdom  ; 
disaffected  lecturers  and  tutors  obtained  entrance  into  the 
universities,  to  corrupt  the  students ;  and  itinerant  preach- 
ers went  through  the  country,  to  prejudice  the  minds  of  the 
people  against  liturgy-conforming  ministers  and  bishops." 
And  among  the  most  heinous  of  the  many  sins  of  these  min- 
isters and  bishops,  did  they  pronounce  to  be,  a  belief  in  the 
freedom  of  the  human  will !  that  sin  proved  them  to  be  Pa- 
pists, beyond  the  possibility  of  contradiction — Papists  of  the 
most  malignant  dye.t  To  crown  the  climax,  and  without 
naming  a  hundred  intervening  steps,  they  avowedly  main- 
tained, that  "  the  Church  of  England  as  it  standeth  now  by 
law  established,  professeth  not  a  true  Christ,  nor  a  true  reli- 
gion ;  that  it  hath  no  ministers  indeed,  nor  sacraments  in- 
deed ;"§  [O  remember  this,  ye  who  denounce  Churchmen  for 
questions  about  the  validity  of  a  ministry  and  sacraments, 
not  known  to  them  as  apostolical ;]  and  "  the  presbytery 
and  eldership  may,  for  some  causes,  after  admonition,  if 
there  ensue  no  cause  of  reformation,  excommunicate  the 
QUEEN  !"|1  "  The  mad  enthusiasts,"  says  Dr.  Nichols, 
"then  proceed  to  anoint  Hacket,  in  the  name  of  the  Lord 
Jesus,  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  queen  having  forfeited  her 
crown,  and  being  worthy  to  be  deprived ;  and  in  the  solemn 


*  Or  tables,  if  my  readers  prefer :  I  have  no  Puseyitish  inklings  for 
the  word  altar.  I  am  astonished,  however,  at  the  outcry  against  it,  espe- 
cially as  the  Methodists  constantly  use  it. 

t  Collier's  Eccl.  Hist.  vi.  435. 

X  Maddox's  Vindication,  pp.  123,  &.c. 

§  Such  was  the  outrageous  doctrine  held,  even  in  the  Admonition  to 
Parliament.  Lathbury,  p.  64,  See  also  Fuller's  Church  History,  ii.  475. 
Gilby's  horrid  opinions. 

11  Gospel  Advocate,  ii.  64,  86. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  59 

manner  as  is  used  in  the  inauguration  of  princes,  he  is  pro- 
claimed by  his  followers,  through  Cheapside,  not  only  king 
of  this  nation,  but  of  all  Europe."* 

I  add  to  these  a  few  illustrations  of  their  language  re- 
specting the  Liturgy,  and  in  their  own  sermons. 

Of  the  Liturgy*"  let  us  see  what  they  say,  in  a  single 
chapter,  on  its  most  reverend  and  impassioned  part,  the  Lit- 
any, but  which  the  "  Anatomy  of  the  Service-Booke"  styles 
*'  not  the  least  sinful,  but  rather  the  most  offensive."  "  Of 
this,"  it  goes  on  to  observe,  *'  it  may  truly  be  said,  as  one 
said  of  the  Pharisees'  sinne,  that  it  was  either  the  sinne  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  or  a  sinne  very  nigh  it ;  so  the  Letany  is 
either  blasphemie,  or  very  nigh  blasphemie."  And  again  : 
*'  Now  this  Letany  is  a  very  fascinating  fardel  of  tautologies 
and  Battologies,  besides  its  other  faults.  In  this  Letany 
there  is  Lord  deliver  us,  eight  times.  Hear,  ice  beseech  thee, 
twenty  times,t  to  omit  many  desires  to  be  delivered  from 
things,  from  which  there  is  not  the  least  appearance,  no  more 
than  of  the  [a  word  too  indecent  to  be  written,]  the  danger 
of  being  drunk  at  a  Whitson-ale,  or  having  a  purse  cut  at  a 
stage-play,  and  not  so  much.  Againe,  after  a  tautologicall 
summing  up  and  repetition,  of  the  titles  and  Elogies  of  the 
Trinity,  tossed  with  responses,  they  fall  on  in  a  heathenish 
way  to  act  the  word  Letany,  or  Maggany,t  as  it  is  well  ren- 

40  See  Note  40. 

*  Nichols'  Defence  of  the  Church  of  England,  p.  31, 3d  edition.  Lon- 
don, 1730.     Du  Pin,  Dublin  edition,  iii.  p.  662. 

Some  of  the  Puritans  would  disclaim  Hacket,  just  as  they  would 
Martin  Marprelate.  But  the  same  logic  which  makes  Churchmen  re- 
sponsible for  Laud's  severities,  makes  them  responsible  for  Hacket's  fanat- 
icism. 

t  In  the  136th  Psalm  there  is,  "  for  his  mercy  endureth  for  ever" 
twenty-six  times :  almost  enough  to  cover  both. 

$  From  the  Greek  magganon,  I  suppose  ;  i.  e.  a  philter,  or  drug,  to 
charm  or  stupefy. 


60  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

dered,  namely  as  it  were  to  conjure;  and  as  if  the  Divell 
were  now  to  be  dispossest,  they  would  use  the  very  same 
pieces,  namely,  *  By  the  mysterie  of  thy  holy  incarnation  ; 
by  thy  holy  nativity  and  circumcision  ;  by  thy  baptism,  fast- 
ing, and  temptation;  by  thine  agony  and  bloody  sweat;  by  thy 
crosse  and  passion  ;  by  thy  precious  death  and  buriall;  and 
by  the  comming  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  Good  Lord  deliver  us."* 
I  well  remember  the  horror  with  which  a  descendant  of  the 
Puritans  narrated  to  me  Dr.  Channing's  profane  caricature 
of  these  awful  appeals  to  Christ,  in  his  Sermon  at  New- 
York,  Dec.  7,  1826,  and  of  which  he  was  a  hearer.  Little 
did  he  suspect,  or  I  either  at  the  time,  that  his  own  ecclesi- 
astical predecessors  had  blasphemed  them  worse  than  an 
actual  Socinian  !^^ 

Now  for  a  sample  of  their  preaching.  "  There  was  a 
sermon  licensed  ^n^  printed  in  1645,  in  which  is  this  tri- 
umph :  "  O  give  thanks  unto  the  Lord,  for  he  is  gracious, 
and  his  mercy  endureth  for  ever  ;  who  remembered  us  at 
Nasehy,  for  his  mercy  endureth  for  ever ;  who  remembered  us 
in  Pembrokeshire,  for  his  mercy  endureth  for  ever  ;  who  re- 
membered us  at  Leicester,  for  his  mercy  endureth  for  ever  ; 
who  remembered  us  at  Taunton,  for  his  mercy  endureth  for 
ever ;  who  remembered  us  at  Bristol,  for  his  mercy  endu- 
reth for  ever."^-  t  So  then,  it  seems,  repetitions  are  very 
admissible,  if  only  employed  by  the  right  party ;  nay,  even 
the  Bible  itself  may  be  travestied  to  glorify  Puritan  victories. 
And  the  same  treatment  (happy  is  it  for  Churchmen  the 
Bible  itself  cannot  plead  exemption,  or  the  abuse  would  be 
justified)  has  the  Prayer-Book  experienced,  from  the  same 

41  See  Note  41.  42  gee  Note  42. 

*  The  Anatomy,  pp.  39,  40.  —  Even  Baxter  could  not  endure 
abuse  of  the  Litany,  and  rebukes  it.  Cure  of  Church  Divisions,  p. 
188. 

t  Walker's  Sufferings,  Pt.  i.  p.  18. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  61 

lawless  tongues.  One  of  the  Puritan  preachers,  ''  to  encour- 
age his  auditors  to  bring  in  liberally,  upon  the  propositions 
for  money,  horse  and  plate,  upon  his  administration  of  the 
Sacrament,  began  thus,  '  All  you  that  have  contributed  to 
the  Parliament,  come  and  take  this  Sacrament  to  your  com- 
fort.' "* 

This  letter  is  already  very  long,  and  much  lengthened  by 
these  quotations.'  Bui  I  fear  it  may  fall  into  hands,  for 
which  references,  however  authoritative,  may  be  no  help  ; 
and  I  accordingly  give  another  quotation  from  Lathbury,  to 
show  how  the  disciples  of  those  who  thus  taught  from  the 
pulpit,  treated  houses  of  public  worship. 

*'  In  some  cathedrals  the  public  records  were  burnt : 
some  of  these  venerable  structures  were  converted  into  sta- 
bles. Horses  were  lodged  in  St.  Paul's  Church  and  in  St. 
George's  Chapel  at  Windsor.  When  the  body  of  Charles 
was  deposited  in  the  royal  chapel,  the  carving  of  the  stalls 
was  torn  off,  and  stakes  were  driven  into  the  ground,  for  the 
purpose  of  securing  the  horses  of  the  soldiers.  In  some 
places,  horses  and  swine  were  baptized  in  derision.  At 
Westminster,  the  soldiers  drank  and  smoked  at  the  altar  ; 
the  brass  tablets  on  the  pavement,  as  is  still  evident,  were 
torn  up  and  sold  ;  the  king's  arms  were  removed  from  the 
churches,  as  marks  of  Antichrist,  and  the  commandments 
replaced  by  the  covenant.  The  surplices  were  torn,  as 
remnants  of  Babylon  ;  and  the  books  of  Common  Prayer 
were,  in  many  places,  burnt  as  Popish  mass-books.  By 
these  militant  saints,  the  worship  of  the  English  Church 
was  classed  with  Popery.  The  communion-plate  was  plun- 
dered :  and  in  many  instances  the  fonts  were  used  as  troughs 
for  the  troopers'    horses. t     At  Warwick,   Colchester,  and 

*  Dugdale's  Short  View,  p.  566. 

t  They  performed  also  mock  baptisms ;  and  these  shocking  profane- 
nesses,  Mr.  Robinson  says,  were  palmed  off  upon  the  Baptists. — Robin- 
son's Hist.  Baptists,  pp.  413.  414. 

4 


62  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

otlier  places,  the  sanctuaries  of  tlie  dead  were  violated,  for 
the  purpose  of  making  merchandize  of  the  leaden  coffins  : 
the  hair  was  torn  from  the  bodies  of  Lady  Lucas  and  Lady 
Killigrew,  and  worn  in  their  hats  by  the  mob,  by  way  of 
triumph.  At  Winchester,  the  bones  of  some  of  the  bishops 
were  strewn  about  the  pavement :  and  at  Sudley,  the  pulpit 
was  converted  into  shambles  for  meat.  In  allusion  to  the 
churches  being  used  as  stables,  it  was  wittily  observed,  that 
they  had  a  thorough  reformation  in  England,  for  that  even 
horses  went  to  church.  At  Canterbury,  the  soldiers  stabbed 
the  arras  hangings  in  the  choir,  on  which  was  the  figure  of 
the  Saviour  :  '  Here  is  Christ,'  said  one,  *  1  will  stab  him.' 
In  Westminster,  where  the  soldiers  were  actually  quartered, 
they  wore  the  surplice  at  the  game  of  hare  and  hounds  ;  he 
who  wore  the  surplice  being  the  hare."* 

And  such  was  Puritanism  in  the  days  of  its  glory  beyond 
the  seas.  We  are  yet  to  remark  its  temper  and  triumphs 
here.  Meanwhile,  I  close  with  a  comment  upon  its  English 
history,  by  a  journal,  whose  evangelical  instructions  have 
often  been  lauded  by  the  lips,  and  paid  for  by  the  money  of 
Puritans.  May  they  take  its  lessons  upon  their  own  faith, 
into  their  inmost  hearts  ;  and  they  will  have  made  a  pur- 
chase, the  most  profitable  perhaps  of  their  lives.  "  Let  the 
documents  even  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign  be  fairly  con- 
sulted ;  let  the  commendations  of  Wyatt's  rebellion,  in  the 
preceding  reign,  be  considered  ;  let  the  various  positions  of 
Knox,  Goodman,  and  others,  be  properly  weighed  ;  and 
little  doubt  will  remain,  how  early,  and  how  deeply,  this 
POLITICAL  LEAVEN  began  to  work.  The  Bible  was  made  to 
serve  a  purpose  it  was  never  intended  to  serve.  And  in  the 
rejection  of  all  human  w'isdom,  all  ecclesiastical  authority, 
all  primitive  examples,   (which  it  is   true   had   been   much 


*  Lathbury's  Eng.  Epis.  p.  190. — Compare  Bishop  Hall's  Hard  Mea- 
sure. Works,  i.  p.  Iv. 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS.  63 

abused  by  the  Papists,)  they  devised  from  the  Scriptures 
alone,  a  new  system  of  their  own  ;  set  up  as  supreme,  their 
own  self-constituted  authority  ;  and  gave  a  fresh  and  grand, 
but  negative  example,  of  zeal  without  prudence,  loyalty 
without  obedience,  purity  without  peace,  and  religion  with- 
out amity." 

I  can  pardon  many  doubts,  and  no  little  staring,  in  some 
of  my  readers  ;  but  I  give  them  my  solemn  assurance,  that  I 
have  quoted  from  no  lower  authority  than  the  CHRISTIAN 
OBSERVER.''^* 


LETTER  IV. 

In  my  last  letter,  an  attempt  was  made  to  show  that  the 
Puritans  were  treated  in  England  with  a  consideration 
which  is  not  unacknowledged  only,  but  firmly  denied.  I 
also  showed  then,  that  this  consideration  was  requited  with 
incessant  hostility,  breaking  out,  where  occasion  offered, 
into  lawless  violence,'**  or  undoubted  treason. ^^  Well  does 
Prof.  Ranke  say,  in  allusion  to  the  insatiate  turbulence  of 
Puritanical  times,  "It  seemed  as  if  the  violent  excitement 
which  had  caused  such  long,  universal  and  perpetually  re- 
curring conflicts  in  the  Protestant  world  at  large,  was  now 
concentrated  in  the  English  Puritans."t  Here  is  impartial 
testimony  to  prove,  that  all  the  fevers  of  the  age,  which 
might  have  spent  their  force,  if  scattered  among  a  hundred 

43  See  Note  43.  ''*  See  Note  44.  ^^  See  Note  45. 

*  See  vol.  for  1815,  p.  471,  American  edition,  the  close  of  a  review 
of  Brooks'  Lives  of  the  Puritans.  / 

t  On  the  Popes,  ii.  123. 


64  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

or  two  of  sects,  had  now,  as  a  sort  of  forlorn  hope,  settled 
down  upon  one  ;  determined  to  work  it  up  to  the  proper 
pitch,  and  achieve  the  disastrous  work  of  revolution.  And 
a  revolution  indeed  did  they  end  in  :  a  revolution  of  demoli- 
tion— which  leaves  not  one  stone  upon  another  that  is  not 
thrown  down.  But  all  this  was  no  more  than  was  aimed  at, 
and  resolved  on;  for  even  Hubbard,  one  of  our  American 
historians  of  Puritanism,  fully  admits,  that  the  thoroughly 
"  Gifted  Brethren"  stood  "  stiffly  to  maintain  a  necessity  of 
abrogating  and  disannulling  their  former  Church-state,  and 
begin  all  anew  ;  as  if  things  had  been  so  far  collapsed  in  the 
days  of  our  fathers,  that,  like  a  vessel  once  infected  with 
the  contagion  of  leprosy,  it  must  be  broken  in  pieces  to  be 
new-cast  and  moulded,  or  else  to  be  judged  unclean  and 
unfit  for  the  service  of  God."* 

Most  truly  these  men  were  not  image-breakers  but 
church-breakers  :  ecclesiastical  destructionists  of  the  strait- 
est  sect.  The  Government  evidently  saw,  that  they  could 
not  treat  such  persons  as  they  had  treated  persons  like  Fox 
and  Humphrey  ;  or  as  they  had  treated  the  peaceable  Hu- 
guenots, who  had  escaped  from  Romish  violence. ^^  The 
contest  between  them  and  itself  was  one,  which  compro- 
mise, reform,  conciliation,  could  never  settle.  It  was  a  war 
of  extermination  on  one  side,t  and  of  self-defence  {pro  oris 
etfocis)  on  the  other.  This  is  the  unvarnished  picture  of 
the  case  ;  and,  with  reference  to  it,  should  we  ever  scruti- 
nize and  estimate  the  (so  called)  persecutions  of  the  Gov- 

46  See  Note  46. 

*  Hubbard's  New  England,  p.  118.  In  the  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d 
series. 

t  By  an  ordinance,  passed  Aug.  23,  1645,  the  use  of  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer  was  not  only  forbidden  in  public,  but  in  private,  on  pen- 
alty of  fines  and  imprisonment  for  a  year  !  (Blackstone's  Comm.  iv. 
50,  52.)  Be  the  day  remembered  !  See  also  "  Candid  Examination,"  a 
Reply  to  Dr.  Mnyhew.  pp.  55.  5fi 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  (J5 

ernment  of  EngKand.  The  severities  of  that  Government 
were  necessary  acts  of  policy. ^^  Mr.  Neal  finds  no  diffi- 
culty, none  whatever,  in  such  a  doctrine  ;  for  he  can  say, 
with  a  safe  conscience,  that  Cromwell's  execrable  law  against 
the  half-starved  Episcopal  clergy,  forbidding  them  even  to 
keep  school,  "  was  made  for  the  safety  of  the  govern.' 
ment,  [Neal's  own  italics,]  against  a  number  of  men 
who  were  undermining  it" — nay,  more,  "  was  published 
chiefly  in  terrorem."^^  *  And  who  then  can  blame  a 
government,  not  usurped,  for  being  a  little  solicitous  for 
the  same  safety ;  and,  moreover,  for  trying  occasionally 
to  scare  its  enemies  ?  This  is  no  more  than  good  policy 
can  justify,  in  a  downright  tyrant ;  Daniel  Neal  himself  be- 
ing vindicator.  And  if  further  justification  be  requisite  for 
this  good  policy,  it  can  be  found  in  the  fact,  that  such  policy 
could  be  justified  progressively  ;  according  to  the  Puritan 
habit  to  which  I  have  previously  alluded.  We  find  it  justi- 
fied in  England  theoretically.  In  New  England  we  find  it 
justified  practically.  To  be  sure,  even  a  Unitarian's  hatred 
of  the  Church  of  England  can  call  it,  by  most  curious  lexi- 
cography, *'  watchfulness  or  intolerance,"  and,  jealousy 
without  cruelty ;  but  I  shall  not  hesitate  to  call  it,  a  direct 
imitation  of  what  the  Puritans  condemned  stoutly  in  the 
Enorlish  Establishment,  and  as  but  one  amono-  a  thousand 
proofs  of  the  sincerity  of  their  clamors.t 

My  readers  will  remember,  what  nauseous  epithets  the 
Puritans  applied  to  the  Church  at  home,  and  to  her  time- 
honored  ministers.  Now,  no  doubt,  they  considered  it  an 
audacious  crime  to  retort  on  such  scurrility,  (see  more  of  it 
in  Grant's  Eng.  Ch.  ii.  440,)  the  penalties  of  a  civil  tribu- 

47  See  Note  47.  ^^  See  Note  48. 

*  Neal,  iv.   160. — Massachusetts,  in  her  acts  of  tyranny,  disavowed 
even  such  equivocal  humanity  as  this. — R.  I.  Hist.  Coll.  ii.  152. 
f  Bancroft's  America,  7th  edition,  i.  394. 


(56  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

nal.  -Aye;  but  see  how  they  themselves  can  endure  such 
a  visitation,  from  the  lips  of  even  a  menial.  *'  At  this 
court,  one  Philip  Ratcliff,  a  servant  of  Mr.  Craddock,  be- 
ing convict  ore  tenus,  of  most  foul,  scandalous  tenets,  against 
our  churches  and  government,  was  sentenced  to  be  whipped, 
fined  .£40,  lose  his  ears,  and  be  banished  the  plantation  ; 
which  was  presently  executed."*  In  1643,  Samuel  Gorton 
and  others,  who  did  not  so  much  as  belong  to  the  colony  of 
Massachusetts,  were  nevertheless  marched  up  from  Rhode 
Island,  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet.  They  were  tried  for 
their  "  blasphemous  and  wicked  errors,"  which  probably 
consisted,  in  chief,  in  not  allowing  the  infallibility  of  a  Pu- 
ritan eldership  ;  for  by  that  eldership  they  were  adjudged 
guilty  of  death.t  But  fortunately,  as  was  often  the  case, 
the  Puritan  laity  were  more  merciful  than  the  ministers. 
The  magistrates  shrunk  from  blood ;  (at  least  some  of 
them  ;)  and  so  Gorton  and  his  colleagues  escaped  the  gal- 
lows, and  were  only  condemned  to  work  like  convicts,  and 
**  wear  irons  upon  one  leg,"  till  they  could  be  conveniently 
banished.  So  much  is  Mr.  Savage's  honest  indignation 
stirred  by  this  infamous  proceeding,  and  especially  by  "  the 

*  Savage's  Winthrop,  i.  56,  and  note.  Felt's  Salem,  p.  54. — This 
was  in  1631,  whereas  Prynne  did  not  have  his  ears  cut  off  till  1663  ;  nor 
Bastwick  and  Burton  theirs,  till  1637.  (See  Rushworth's  Collections,  ii, 
382.)  So,  in  these  horrid  punishments,  the  Puritans  in  New  England 
set  Archbishop  Laud,  in  Old  England,  an  example  to  copy !  Surely  they 
ought  to  be  kinder  to  their  imitator ! 

t  "  This  detestable  tyranny  came  of  Mr.  Cotton's  Jewish  theocracy, 
and  it  is  a  lamentable  fact,  that  that  mistaken  divine  encouraged  the 
court  in  this  horrid  oppression  of  Gorton  and  his  unfortunate  associates." 
Benedict's  Baptists,  i.  462.  The  laity,  however,  were  not  very  unplastic 
materials  for  a  clerical  inquisitor.  "  I  fear,"  says  Gov.  Winthrop's  bro- 
ther, "  the  Lord  is  offended  for  sparing  the  lives  of  Gorton  and  his  com- 
panions ;  for  if  they  all  be  as  busy  as  this  at  Salem,  there  will  be  much 
evil  seed  sown  in  the  country.  I  hope  some  of  them  will  be  brought  to 
trial  next  court,  for  breach  of  their  order  ;  and  if  yet  you  shall  spare  them, 
I  shall  fear  a  curse  upon  the  land,"     Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  series,  i.  16. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  57 

horrible  judgment  of  the  elders,"  that  he  well  says  in  a  note, 
"  It  must  be  inferred  that  no  place,  hut  England^  was  left 
for  the  unhappy  schismatics."* 

These  are  but  solitary  instances,  to  illustrate  what  Puri- 
tan policy  can  do  for  its  own  "  safety  ;"  though  Puritans 
may  be  privileged  to  pronounce  such  policy  in  the  English 
Government,  as  they  did  in  the  English  Church,  a  Babylon- 
ish abom.ination.  But  there  are  plenty  in  store  where  these 
came  from,  if  it  be  thought  necessary  to  evoke  them.  Pu- 
ritan archives  are  rich  in  matter  ;  and  the  records  of  the 
Star-Chamber  and  High-Commission  Courts  of  Massachu- 
setts are  in  good  preservation.  It  will  be  remembered  that 
the  powers  of  these  courts  were  explicitly  arrogated. f  That 
they  were  exercised,  as  freely  as  in  London,  or  in  the  halls 
of  the  Inquisition,  is  a  proposition  which  I  would  a  thousand 
times  sooner  address  myself  to  prove,  than  the  desperate  one 
of  Mr.  Punchard,  viz.,  that  Congregationalism  "  presents 
the  most  efficient  barriers  to  the  inroads  of  heresy  and  false 
doctrine."!  Mr.  Punchard  wisely  eschews  facts  under  such 
a  proposition,  and  spends  all  his  vigor  on  theory.  However, 
he  does  as  well  as  he  can.  The  woful  and  still  increasing 
defections  of  Congregationalism,  leave  him  nothing  else. 
Its  past  history,  or  even  its  present,  (if  the  charges  of  So- 
cinians  be  true,  who  have  departed  less  from  strict  Congre- 
gationalism than  their  orthodox  brethren,)  will  supply  me 
with/ac^5,  till  I  match  every  grievance  in  England  with  its 
parallel  here. 

As  I  contemplate  the  tribute  which  the  Puritans  would 
liave  extorted  from  the  English  Government,  and  the  as- 
saults (for  they  were  no  less)  by  which  they  attempted  to 
enforce   it,  I  often  ask   myself, — What  possibly  consistent 

*  Savage's  Winthrop,  ii.  142-149.  R.  I.  Hist.  Coll.  ii.  134,135. 
Emerson's  First  Church,  p.  78. 

t  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  series,  iii.  84. 
X  Punchard's  View,  &c.  p.  176. 


(j8  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

argument  can  be  urged,  that  this  Government  should  have 
yielded  to  their  demands  ?  Here  sits  our  modern  eulogist 
of  his  Puritanical  ancestry,  whose  republican  doctrine  is, 
that  the  majority  should  always  be  supreme,  and,  with  the 
ineffable  self-complacency  of  a  smoking  Turk,  marvels  that 
the  people  of  England  should  have  preferred  a  monarchy 
and  Episcopacy,  to  the  "  changes  and  chances"  to  which 
a  few  levellers  would  introduce  them.  And,  because  they 
decided  that  their  strength  was  to  sit  still,  he  bespatters 
them  with  the  epithets,  "  priest-ridden,"  and"  king-ridden," 
and  a  score  beside,  as  pertinent  and  expressive.  Truly,  this 
is  an  edifying  spectacle.  It  reminds  one  of  the  sequitur  in 
the  sorites  of  Shylock  the  Jew. 

"  Shall  I  bend  low,  and  in  a  bondman's  key, 
With  'bated  breath  and  whispering  humbleness, 
Say  this : — 

Fair  Sir,  you  spit  on  me  on  Wednesday  last ; 
You  spurned  me  such  a  day  ;  another  time 
You  called  me  dog  ;  and  for  these  courtesies 
I'll  lend  you  thus  much  monies." 

A  great  nation  not  to  manage  its  own  concerns  in  its 
own  way,  but  to  submit  to  the  dictation  of  a  petty  clan, 
whose  best  commendation  is  that  themselves  think  them- 
selves holier,  wiser,  and  worthier  1*  And  because  it  will 
not,  and  arrests,  (it  may  be,  not  with  a  nurse's  gentleness  to 
a  queasy  baby,)  that  "  unruly  evil,"  which  would  sprinkle 
"  deadly  poison"  on  all  it  values,  is  it  to  be  viewed  with  vast 
surprise,  and  its  acts  denounced,  not  to  the  third  and  fourth, 
(the  Divine  limit,)  but  to  the  thirtieth  and  fortieth  genera- 
tion, as  the  quintessence  of  tyranny  ?  O  modesty,  truth, 
and  candor  !  is  such  a  perversion  of  right  and  reason  one  of 
the  illustrations  of  the  doctrine  of  Total  Depravity  ? 

*  This  is  no  new  question.  Similar  ones  were  put  to  Puritans  in 
the  olden  time— L'Estrange's  Holy  Cheat,  ed.  1662.  p.  132.  Naked 
Truth,  ed.  1675,  p.  27. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  59 

But  does  not  simple  fact  authorize  me  to  draw  this  pic- 
ture, of  the  restless  demands,  the  sour  aspersions,  and  the 
demolishing  schemes,  of  the  thorough-bred  Puritan  ?  What 
if  Episcopacy,  and  a  hundred  other  things,  were  associated 
with  the  government  of  England,  which  «ce,  for  example, 
might  not  relish  ?  What  if  Churchmen  thought  Old  Eng- 
land, as  the  Puritans  did  New  England,  the  new  heavens 
and  the  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness  ?*  What 
if  they  thought  it  a  "  little  theocracy,"  in  which  not  "  Eaton 
and  Davenport,"  but  Charles  I.  and  Laud,  should  be  "  the 
Moses  and  Aaron  ?"t  What  would  such  a  condition  of  af- 
fairs be  to  us,  if  the  people  chose  to  have  it  so  ?  And  did 
not  the  people  of  England  choose  to  have  it  so?  did  not 
protection  under  Cromwell  almost  grind  them  to  powder  ? 
did  not  the  hierarchy  of  presbyteries,  and  the  "  lord  breth- 
ren," drive  the  people  for  relief,  into  as  many  sects  and 
schisms  as  they  were  ever  driven  by  inquisitorial  Rome  ?| 
And  did  they  not  welcome  back  a  legitimate  monarch,  and 
bona  fide  bishops,  with  triumphs  of  joy?  Let  the  Restora- 
tion of  1660  answer. ^^ 

O  it  is  a  famous  construction  of  the  rights  of  private 
judgment,  (one  of  the  fashions  of  this  era  of  "  develop- 
ment,") that  a  body  of  men  who  decree  themselves  right, 
may  forsooth  denounce  and  overturn  the  entire  fabric  of  a 
state,  which  unfortunately  cherishes  opinions  and  practices 
not  harmonizing  with  their  pattern.  And  it  must  be  said, 
that,  of  all  places  on  the  terraqueous  globe.  New  England  is 
the  most  unfit  to  countenance  and  abet  it.  For  I  know 
not  the  people  beneath  this  sun,  so  zealous  for  their  peculiar 

49  See  Note  49. 

*  Mather's  Magnalia,  i.  296. 
t  Bacon's  Historical  Disc.  p.  96. 

t:  "  Never  people  nearer  to  a  bottomless  pit  of  horrible  evils,"  says  the 
Presbyterian  Baillie,  in  1646. — Baillie's  Letters,  ii.  228. 

4* 


70  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

habits,  institutions,  and  privileges,  (right  or  wrong,)  as 
New  Englanders — not  the  people,  who  would  sooner  resent, 
or  repel,  any  encroachment  on  their  freedom,  "  as  they  un- 
derstand it" — not  the  people,  who  would  more  stoutly, 
fiercely,  unshriiy^ingly,  unfailingly,  defend  it,  (true  freedom 
or  false,)  to  the  utmost  impulse  of  strength,  and  the  latest 
beat  of  the  heart.  South  Carolina  has  had  her  nullification, 
and  New  England  her  Hartford  Convention  ;  but  having 
lived  in  a  southern  state  as  well  as  in  a  northern  one,  I  am 
free  to  say,  that  if  rebellion  must  come,  my  most  earnest 
prayer  would  be,  Let  it  not  begin  among  the  posterity  of 
the  Puritans.  The  little  finger  of  rebellion  there,  would  be 
thicker  than  the  loins  of  nullification  elsewhere.*  Aad  this 
ever  makes  me  think,  that  the  Government  of  England 
must  have  had  a  struggle  of  dread  anxiety,  with  those  who 
have  transmitted  Puritan  tempers  and  principles  to  our  dis- 
tant times.  And  yet  (mirahile  visu  ! )  among  those  who 
account  such  tempers  and  principles  their  dearest  legacy, 
do  we  find  the  heartiest  denouncers  of  the  self-defensive 
severities  of  England.  All  this  too,  by  those,  who,  when 
England's  arm  (unlike  those  of  Mahomet's  angels)  could 
not  reach  across  a  hemisphere,  wielded  the  power  of  such 
severities,  without  one  scruple  ;  and  prosecuted  them  with 
a  vehemence  so  unpausing,  and  an  immutability  so  dire,  that 
Christian  courtesy  and  charity  shrink  aghast  from  the 
frightful  exhibition. 

But  I  may  lose  too  much  time  on  a  subject,  so  full  of 
the  seeds  of  things,  that  one  is  tempted  to  digressions  at 
every  step.     My  object  in  defence  of  our  own  Church 

IS,  TO  ADDUCE  AND  IMPRESS  THE  SALUTARY  AND  RIGIDLY 
JUST  IDEA,  THAT,    OF  ALL  CENSORS  ON  THE   GLOBE,  THE    Pu- 

*  So  probably  would  Cotton  Mather  himself  have  said  ;  for  it  is  his 
testimony,  "  New  England  has,  at  the  best,  been  always  too  faulty  in  that 
very  character,  [of  old  Egypt,]  a  province  very  talkative,  and  ingenious 
for  the  vilifying  of  its  public  servants."     Life  of  Phips,  pp.  99,  100. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  71 

RITANS  AND  THEIR  POSTERITY  SHOULD  BE  THE  LAST  TO 
COMPLAIN     OF     ECCLESIASTICAL     PREDOMINANCE     AND    CIVIL 

PENALTIES.  Charles  Butler,  Esq.,  author  of  the  Book  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  once  proposed  that  the  cruel- 
ties of  dueen  Mary  to  the  Protestants,  should  be  kept  in 
abeyance,  if  the  cruelties  of  Queen  Elizabeth  to  the  Papists 
were  put  under  a  similar  embargo.  Much  more  should  Pu- 
ritans propose  never  to  disparage  the  Church  of  England, 
or  vilify  the  nafne  of  Laud,  if  Churchmen  would  not  re- 
count their  own  enormities,  or  blazon  those  of  Endicott, 
whom  a  soft-voiced  Quaker,  the  historian  Sewel,  in  the  an- 
guish of  his  soul,  cannot  refrain  from  pronouncing  '"  ex- 
travagantly severe — barbarously  ungrateful — blood-thirsty" 
— and  as  having  "  died  with  rottenness,  his  name  being 
like  to  give  a  bad  savor  through  ages  to  come."^°  *  I  say 
much  more  should  Puritans  propose  this,  for  they  were  the 
aggressors.  The  Church  of  England  was  in  the  field  before 
them  :  Elizabeth's  first  Act  of  Uniformity  being  made,  (as 
Sewel  confesses,  p.  263,)  against  Papists  only,  and  thought 
quite  enough  for  the  long  interval  of  three  and  twenty 
years !  This  Church,  then,  had  the  right,  the  vested  right, 
of  possession.  It  had,  what  a  Puritan  taste  so  much  de- 
lighted to  see  confirmed  by  a  charter,  *'  the  entire  property 
of  the  soil."  And  well  therefore  might  it  be  said,  as  Puller 
said  in  after  days,  roused  sometimes  beyond  his  text — 
*'  Moderation" — ''  What  right  can  be  pretended  by  these 
men,  to  attempt  innovations  in  Church  and  State  ?  Who 
made  them  trustees,  or,  to  speak  in  their  own  language,  th6 
keepers  of  the  liberties  of  England  ?"t  Well  might  it  have 
been  asked  them,  how  they  durst  contemn  the  too  gentle 
rebuke  ofBullinger,  that  no  man  should  frame  a  conscience 

50  See  Note  50. 

*  Sewel's  Quakers,  IGO,  339,  343. 

t  Puller,  chap.  xiii.  p.  238,  new  edition. 


7-2  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

for  himself,  out  of  the  spirit  of  contentiousness.*  But  these 
self-satisfied  advocates  of  liberty  and  equality,  were  nothing 
daunted  by  such  considerations.  On  all  occasions,  when 
they  might  be  gainers  and  not  losers,  they  obtrusively  enter 
the  scene,  and  say  to  England's  Church  and  State,  Your 
peculiarities  ought  not  so  to  be.^*  We  ought  to  share  your 
freehold  ;  our  pleasure  ought  to  be  consulted  in  your  man- 
agement ;  and  if  our  wishes  are  not  regarded,  we  warn  you 
in  the  language  of  Pharaoh  to  Moses,  *'  Look  to  it,  for  evil 
is  before  you."  And  because  their  presumption  does  not 
bend,  nor  their  threats  intimidate — and  because,  when  they 
do  not,  and  even  force  and  cunning  fail,  (cunning  to  which, 
as  a  Presbyterian  said,  Machiavel  and  the  Jesuits  were  but 
punies  and  freshmen, )t  they  abandon  England  in  vexation, 
to  play  their  favorite  game  on  a  more  open  theatre — Oh, 
they  are  persecuted  by  those  *'  caterpillars  of  the  world, 
who  consume  yearly  twenty-five  hundred  or  three  thousand 
pounds,"  and  fly  in  pious  horror  from  their  father-land  for 
"  a  'purely  religious  cause!" 

This  brings  us  to  a  new  point  in  our  devious  subject, 
the  self-exile,  (expatriation,  says  a  Presbyterian, |)  of  the 
Puritans  from  Europe  ;  which  has  been  ascribed,  without 
flinching,  to  the  cause  just  specified.  Says  John  Norton, 
in  1659,  with  a  dogmatism  inherent  in  his  race,  "  It  con- 
cerneth  New  England  always  to  remember,  that  originally 
they  are  a  plantation  religious,  not  a  plantation  of  trade. "^2 
Increase  Mather  hath  it  thus  :  it  was  '*  with  regard  to 
church-order  and  discipline,  that  the  good  old  Puritan  non- 
conformists transported  themselves,  and  their  families,  over 
the  vast  ocean,  to  these  goings  down  of  the  sun."     Says 

=»  See  Note  51.  52  ^^^  js^^jg  52 


*  Le  Bas's  .Jewel,  p.  169,  English  edition, 
t  Edwards's  Gangraena,  Ft.  iii.  1.50. 
X  Hefherington's  West   Ass.  p.  159. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  73 

Judge  Story,  "  The  Puritans,  persecuted  at  home,  and 
groaning  under  the  weight  of  spiritual  bondage,  cast  a  long- 
ing eye  toward  America,  as  an  ultimate  retreat  for  them- 
selves and  their  children.  They  were  encouraged  by  the 
information,  that  the  colonies  at  Plymouth  were  allowed  to 
worship  their  Creator  according  to  the  dictates  of  their  con- 
sciences, icithout  molestation."*  Says  a  Unitarian  minister, 
Mr.  Francis,  "  The  enterprise  was  strictly  speaking  an  ec- 
clesiastical concern  ;  and  presents  the  singularly  striking 
case  of  a  nation  receiving  its  existence,  distinctly. and  wholly, 
from  religious  causes. "f  And  lastly,  says  even  a  Baptist, 
"  The  Puritans,  a  title  of  intellectual  as  well  as  mr  ral  no- 
bility, left  all  the  endearments  of  home  for  a  purely  religious 
cause. "J  He  says  this,  however,  as  do  many,  from  having 
by  its  perennial  repetition  acquiesced,  unthinkingly,  in  the 
sing-song  of  the  day;  for,  in  most  illogical  and  infelicitous 
juxtaposition,  we  find  on  his  very  next  page  a  hint,  that 
even  down  to  A.D.  1765,  his  Baptist  brethren  were  "  almost 
every  where  oppressed,"  by  those  on  whom  he  had  just  be- 
stowed the  broadest  letters  patent,  which  ever  graced  an 
aristocrat. §  However,  be  this  incongruity  as  it  may,  the 
representation  which  depicts  the  Puritans  as  having  "  trans- 
ported" (unlucky  phrase  !)  themselves  for  a  purely  religious 
cause,  is  one  which,  with  New  England  sturdiness,  I  must 
positively  deny,  and  continue  to  deny,  till  I  can  read  his- 
tory backwards.  And  in  doing  so,  I  resort  not  to  the  piti- 
able disclaimer  of  Unitarians,  and  say  that  I  am  alone  in 
this  adventure.  My  fellow-churchmen,  I  am  equally  posi- 
tive, will  give  me  many  a  hearty  Amen.  "  Strive  for  the 
truth  unto  death,  and  the  Lord  shall  fight  for  thee,"  says  an 
authority,  which  if  apocryphal,  (Ecclus.  iv.  28,)  has  all  but 


*  Comm.  on  the  Const,  i,  46.  t  Hist,  of  Watertown. 

X  Wayland's  Sermon  on  Dependence  of  Science  on  Religion,  p.  20. 
§  Compare  Benedict's  History  of  the  Baptists,  i.  381. 


74  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

the  warrant  of  inspiration.  It  speaks  its  sense,  if  not  its 
words  ;  and  I  can  act  on  it  with  uplifting  confidence  in  my 
bretliren  and  my  cause. 

And  now  for  the  reasons,  which  sustain  your  correspond- 
ent in  his  position.  Pray  have  we  not  had  a  glimpse  of 
them  already  ?  Has  not  something  been  detailed,  to  justify 
*'  good  old"  Owen  Felltham's  definition  of  a  Puritan  :  **  As 
he  is  more  generally  in  these  times  taken  to  be,  I  suppose 
we  may  call  him  a  Church-rebel ;  or  one  that  would  ex- 
clude order,  that  his  brain  might  rule?"*  at  least  something 
to  warrant  the  less  questionable  definition  of  the  gentle 
Cowper,  in  one  of  his  letters  (p.  65) ;  "  Every  circumstance 
of  ecclesiastical  order  and  discipline  was  an  abomination  to 
them  ?"  From  the  very  fact,  that  the  through  and  through 
Puritans  were  determined  to  have  nothing  short  of  absolute 
ascendency  in  Church  and  State — had  virtually  adopted  the 
watchword  of  an  ambition  as  tall  as  their  own — Aut  CcBsar, 
aut  nullus — is  not  the  inference  gained,  without  their  own 
circumvolution,  that  they  deserted  England  because  this 
ascendency  was  beyond  their  reach  ?  True,  they  conjured 
up  a  storm,  and  went  away  in  the  midst  of  it.  During  this 
storm,  blows  were  given  as  well  as  taken  ;  and  the  issue  was 
not  then  to  be,  that  Church  and  State  should  be  sundered 
and  thrown  prostrate  in  the  desperate  strife.  The  Puritans 
were  at  first  vanquished,  and  compelled  to  tap  the  drum  for 
a  retreat.  Reluctantly  enough,  perhaps ;  for  if  they  or 
theirs  ever  had  one  characteristic,  which  like  Aaron's  rod 
swallowed  up  all  its  associates,  it  was  the  disposition  to  have 
every  thing  after  "  the  devices  and  desires  of  their  own 
hearts."  They  were  compelled  to  retreat.  Yes,  and  they 
sailed  for  Holland,  and  strove  to  plant  a  lever  there,  for 
overturning  institutions  not  congenial  to  their  whims.     But, 


*  Felltham's  Resolves,  edit.   1820,  p.  9.     Felltham  was  born  about 
1600,  and  died  about  1678. 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS.  75 

by  mishap,  there  was  no  stand-point,  no  nov  orw  for  them. 
*'  There  they  were  tolerated  indeed,  but  watched,"  says  the 
philosophical  and  impartial  author  of  *  European  Settle- 
ments,' whose  work  has  been  already  quoted ;  and  so  **  they 
chose  to  remove  to  a  place  where  they  should  see  no  supe- 
rior."* Eleven  **  long  tedious  years"  were  quite  enough,  to 
make  them  devoutly  "  tired  of  the  indolent  security  of  their 
sanctuary."  Restraining  grace  was  not  one  of  the  largest 
endowments  of  the"*  Gifted  Brethren."  Their  smothered 
ambition  at  last  breaks  out ;  and  we  find  them  pushing  for 
a  theatre  where  they  might  be  free  from  "  watching,"  and 
wield  "  the  rod  of  empire"  with  none  to  make  afraid.  But, 
after  all,  they  were  too  wary  to  be  content  with  a  skeleton 
frame  of  government,  not  clothed  upon  with  wholesome 
muscle — unbraced  with  nerve  and  sinew.  Duly  cautious 
therefore  were  they,  to  look  not  only  after  power,  but  after 
the  only  vital  aliment  of  power  ;  that  trash,  which,  saith 
the  poet's  paradox,  is  something — nothing.  They  never 
braved  a  billow,  till  they  had  attempted  to  drive  a  favorable 
bargain  with  a  company  of  merchants,  who  had  more  capi- 
tal but  as  much  sharpness  as  themselves,  and  who  therefore 
bound  them  in  ten  tight  articles.!  They  and  their  emissa- 
ries went  to  and  fro,  like  the  raven  upon  the  waters,  till 
they  obtained  under  sign  and  seal  a  Charter,  whose  munifi- 
cent compass  and  unqualified  endowments  rivalled  in  their 
construction  of  it,  the  powers  of  Parliament,  and  every 
court  within  the  realm. i: 

And  being  such,  and  attempting  such  things  in  England, 
and  failing  there — failing  too  in  their  fond  schemes  in  Hol- 
land— then  compacting  with  an  avowed  band  of  money- 
getters,  and  fortified  by  this  all-embracing  charter,  they  set 
up  their  standard  on  this  distant  shore  : — And  all  for  "  a 


*  Vol.  ii.  137,  138.  t  Baylies'  Plymouth,  i.  18,  19. 

t  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  series,  iii.  84. 


i 


76  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

purely  religious  cause"  ?  They  look  after  the  profits  of 
trade,  with  eagle  eyes  ;  for  the  tell-tale  letter  of  Dudley  re- 
veals their  expectations  :* — And  all  for  **  a  purely  religious 
cause"  ?  They  "  profess  freely,"  that  they  come  here  to 
"  win  and  incite  the  natives  of  the  country  to  the  know- 
ledge and  obedience  of  the  only  true  God  and  Saviour  of 
mankind  and  the  Christian  faith  ;"  (see  the  Charter ;)  and 
yet  "  have  nothing  to  excuse  themselves  in  this  point,  of  not 
laboring  with  the  Indians  to  instruct  them,  but  their  want 
of  a  staple  trade,  and  other  business  taking  them  up  :"f — 
And  all  this  for"  a  purely  religious  cause"?  They  give  up 
these  poor  natives,  (to  whom  the  Charter  should  have  been 
like  the  great  sheet  let  down  from  heaven,  full  of  many  a 
year's  provision,)  as  victims  to  rum  and  gunpowder,  be- 
cause esteemed  agents  and  familiars  of  the  devil  ;  they  sell 
their  children  into  West  Indian  slavery  ;|  they  suspect  them 
most,  when  best  intentioned,  if  they  dare  to  pity  a  ban- 
ished heretic,  and  make  them  liable  to  exterminating  war  :§ 
And  all  this  for  "  a  purely  religious  cause"  ?  They  rule, 
(as  we  shall  soon  see,)  with  a  superstition,  and  under  the 
promptings  of  a  priestcraft,  unsurpassed  in  the  annals  of 
Popes  or  of  Lauds,  of  High-Commissions  or  Star-Cham- 
bers : — And  all  this  for  "  a  purely  religious  cause"  ?  They 
arrest,  (as  we  shall  also  soon  see,)  try,  condemn,  fine,  im- 
prison, fetter,  brand,  lash,  maim,  curse,  banish,  hang,  and 
leave  naked  and  unburied  (save  in  the  bowels  of  beasts  of 

*  See  also  James  Shirley's  confession,  about  their  aiming  at  other 
ends  than  God's  glory. — Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  series,  iii.  49. 

t   Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  series,  iii.  80. 

X  Trumbull's  Connecticut,  i.  115.  Stone's  Brant,  pref.  i,  p.  xv. — 
Even  royal  blood  was  no  more  spared  here  than  in  England.  A  son  of 
King  Philip,  a  mere  child,  was  sold  into  slavery.  The  ministers,  how- 
ever, like  genuine  Dominican  friars,  were  for  putting  him  to  death,  and 
pleaded  Scripture  as  usual. — (Knowles's  Memoir,  347.) 

§  R.  I.  Hist.  Coll.  ii.  155. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PUKII'ANS.  77 

pre\)  their  brethren  in  a  common  Protestant  Christianity  : — 
And  all  this  for  *'  a  purely  religious  cause"  ?  They  re- 
enact  what  Bancroft  calls,  "  The  uwrst  statute  in  the  Eng- 
lish code,  thdit  which  did  but  enforce  attendance  upon  the 
parish  church  ;"*  and  drag  those  whom  they  had  made 
heretics  by  vote,  and  with  the  force  of  military  as  well  as 
civil  power,  to  hear  teachers  whom  they  had  constituted  or- 
thodox by  vote  :t — And  all  this  for  "  a  purely  religious 
cause"  ?  They  establish  the  principle,  which  Bogue  and 
Bennett  say  "  carries  in  it  all  the  vilest  leaven  of  an  exclu- 
sive establishment, "J  allowing  no  one  the  rights  of  a  free- 
man, "  not  admitted  of  their  Church  i"^^  moreover  another 
equally  odious  principle,  allowing  no  one  to  be  tried  or 
judged,  "  be  it  for  life  or  limb,  name  or  estate,"  but  *'  by 
those  of  the  Church,"  who,  Hutchinson§  admits,  are  "  in  a 
sort  theii'  adversaries,"  that  happen  not  to  be  of  the  elect 
fraternity  : — And  all  this  for  "  a  purely  religious  cause"  ? 
They  tolerate  such  grossness  in  the  pulpit,  and  in  the  press, 
(and  against  those  whose  sex  should  have  been  sufficient 
protection,)  as  might  disgrace  a  bar-room  : — And  all  this 
for  "  a  purely  religious  cause  ?"|| 

Yes;  there  is  a  nomenclature  in  which  things  like  these 
maybe — not  written  down  or  cloaked  over,  beneath  "  bal- 
loon or  inflated  sleeves" — but  written  down  and  mollified, 
if  not  justified,  by  the  stolen  and  insulted  sanction  of  "  pure 
religion."  There  is  such  a  nomenclature  in  which,  notwith- 
standing, the  fines  and  forfeitures  and  imprisonments  and 

53  See  Note  53. 

*  America,  i.  369.  t  Savage's  Wint.  ii.  142,  238,  notes. 

t  Dissenters,  ii.  440.  §  Hist.  Mass.  i.  31. 

11  Savage's  Wint.  i.  271,  &c.  Mather's  Mag.  ii.  449. — And  all  this, 
too,  when,  as  Hubbard  confesses,  they  had  a  fairer  opportunity  to  hit  the 
right  mark,  "than  ever  men  had  in  many  ages  past." — Hubbard's  New 
England,  p.  181. 


78  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

scourges  of  Abp.  Laud,  would  be  written  with  "  a  pen  of 
iron,"  as  offences  never  to  be  forgiven  or  forgotten.  Be  it 
thus,  if  men  will  try  to  rivet  prejudices  till  they  become  like 
laws — like  the  laws  of  the  Medes  and  Persians,  which  never 
changed.  Who  would  not  rather  be  such  as  Laud,  though 
he  had  less  of  prudence  and  judgment,  than  of  zeal  and  hon- 
esty, than  such  as  these  T^*  I  well  know  that  any  advocacy 
of  this  ill-omened  name,  how  slight  soever,  will  be  atrocious 
guilt  before  that  livid  implacability,  which  will  never  admit 
that  its  offences  against  man,  have  to  man  been  deeply  atoned 
for,  by  a  trial  to  which  the  rack  were  a  mercy,  by  a  doom  to 
the  gallows,  and  by  death  (earth's  latest  boon  to  him)  under 
the  executioner's  axe.^^  But  I  feel  as  if  it  were  any  thing 
but  sin  to  defend  him,  (noble  defender  as  he  was  of  the  Prot- 
estant faith  in  his  conference  with  the  Jesuit  Fisher,)^®  when, 
even  at  this  late  day,  I  discover  a  very  positive  assertor  de- 
claring,* that  but  for  the  Puritans  England  had  never  been 
Protestant.  Venerable,  but  alas.  Episcopal  Lambeth !  the 
blood  of  two  of  your  archbishops,  martyred  by  Romanists 
and  by  Puritans,  proclaims  who  were  your  worst  enemies, 
and  how  earnestly  you  have  contended  for  the  faith  once  de- 
livered to  the  saints,  by  "  the  armor  of  righteousness  on  the 

RIGHT   HAND   AND  ON  THE   LEFT." 

54  See  Note  54.  ^^  See  Note  55.  ^6  ggg  Note  56. 

*  Bancroft,  i.  289. — Let  Mr.  Bancroft  here  remember  his  forgotten  epi- 
sode on  Virginia,  and  her  universal  suffrage.  I  shall  speak  of  the  matter 
in  due  time. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  79 


LETTER  V. 

Having  now  gone  over,  as  my  limits  allow  me,  the 
prominent  points  of  English  Puritan  history,  it  is  but  equi- 
table that  we  should  listen  to  some  of  the  apologies  which 
have  been  offered  in  its  behalf;  and  also  to  the  reasons  as- 
signed for  the  resolution  to  erect  the  standard  of  Puritanism 
in  New  England,  This  letter  will,  accordingly,  be  devoted 
to  an  examination  of  the  principal  of  these  apologies  and 
reasons. 

I. — The  first  I  would  call  attention  to,  is  the  nature  of 
the  contest  for  which  the  Puritans  were  enlisted. 

"  The  nature  of  the  contest  in  which  they  were  so  deep- 
ly concerned,  was  adapted,"  says  Mr.  Francis,  "  to  bring  out 
the  sharp,  stern,  uncompromising  qualities  of  the  human 
character.^^  *  Such  opinions,  says  Mr.  Bancroft,  as  "the 
advocating  liberty  of  conscience,"  and  *'  enmity  to  colonial 
independence,"  opinions  entertained  by  Gorton  and  his  as- 
sociates, "  would  have  destroyed  the  ecclesiastical  system 
of  Massachusetts,  and  subverted  its  liberties."!  In  other 
words,  the  Puritans  took  it  upon  themselves  to  decide,  that 
such  opinions,  in  the  too  free-minded  Gorton  and  his  col- 
leagues, were  highly  dangerous ;  though  they  lived  in  Rhode 
Island,  and  were  without  the  narrow  precincts  of  the  Mas- 
sachusetts charter.53     They  were  opinions,  like  Roger  Wil- 

"  See  Note  57.  s*^  See  Note  58. 

*  Hist.  Watertown,  p.  4.  t  America,  i,  419. 


80  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

liams's,  amenable  to  the  penalties  of  Master  Cotton's  statute 
of  lese-majesty.*  They  would  issue  in  treason  ;  and 
therefore  it  was  lawful  for  Puritans  to  despatch  an  armed 
force,  and  march  the  unfortunate  liberalists  before  the 
musket's  muzzle,  within  the  territory  of  Massachusetts — 
try  them  there — all  but  hang  them,  and  then  doom  them  to 
toil  like  bond  slaves,  wear  the  iron  garters  of  felons,  and 
not  dare  to  open  their  lips,  except  to  a  magistrate,  or  a  min- 
ister, on  pain  of  immediate  death  !  t 

So,  then,  *'  the  nature  of  tlie  contest"  is  one  excuse  for 
what  the  Hon.  Mr.  Savage  says  he  can  call  by  "  no  milder 
word"  than  "  extraordinary  tyranny  ;"|  and  their  own  be- 
lief that  their  ecclesiastical  sovereignty  and  colonial  inde- 
pendence were  in  peril,  is  another.  I  will  not  pause  to 
illustrate,  as  might  be  done  on  the  authority  of  the  Papist 
Fleury,§  how  political  and  not  conscientious  reasons  influ- 
ence such  decisions.  For  argument's  sake,  let  the  premises 
stand ;  and  then  let  us  ask  if  they  could  not  serve  our  turn 
quite  as  well.  I  wish  we  may  never  be  called  to  answer  a 
darker  question  :  better  data  no  one  need  desire. 

It  is  well  known,  that  if  Roger  Williams  was  not  an 
abolitionist  respecting  slavery,  he  was  respecting  all  test 
acts,  statutes  against  heresy,  and  against  free  toleration. 
He  wrote  with  all  his  might  in  opposition  to  the  "  Bloody 
Tenet  of  Persecution,"  and  published  his  book  in  London, 
A.  D.  1644.  In  A.  D.  1647,  that  book  received  an  answer 
from  a  Puritan  minister,  John  Cotton.  The  presumptuous, 
not  to  say  profane  title  of  this  answer  was,  ''  The  Bloody 
Tenet  washed  and  made  white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb." 
Cotton  labored  with  a  zest  which  would  have  made  Dun- 
stan  or  Dominic  smile:  another  coincidence,  by  the  way, 

*  Bancroft's  America,  i.  374. 

t  Compare  Holmes's  Annuals,  i.  272. — Knowles's  Roger  Williams, 
184-189. 

t  Winthrop,  i.  289.  §  Disc,  on  Eccl.  Hist.  p.  265. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  81 

between  Papists  and  Puritans;  for  a  more  earnest  defence 
of  persecution  cannot  be  found  upon  all  the  shelves  of  the 
Vatican.  Charles  IX.  should  have  had  it  to  read,  the  night 
preceding  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew :  it  would  have 
been  equal  to  an  absolution  beforehand.*  But  I  may  be 
thought  to  be  too  harsh  a  critic,  though  upon  a  principle 
than  which  popery  has  not  a  harsher ;  so  I  will  quote  the 
commentary  of  the  Baptist  Prof.  Knowles,  "The  Court  of 
High  Commission,  who  expelled  Mr.  Cotton  from  England, 
would  have  needed  no  other  defence  of  their  conduct  than 
his  own  arguments. "t  And,  with  equal  propriety  and  truth, 
may  we  say  of  the  authorities  of  England  who  expelled  the 
Puritans,  (if,  that  is,  they  were  not  rather  expatriated,)  they 
needed  no  other  defence  of  their  conduct  than  Puritan  ra- 
tiocination. Be  it  ever  remembered — let  it  have  monumen- 
tum  are  perennius — that  Puritans  have  argued  and  vindi- 
cated persecution  upon  principle!  They  have  written  sol- 
emnly in  its  behalf  Nay,  they  have  consecrated  it  among 
the  standards  of  their  religion.  Cotton  knew  he  was  not 
alone;!  and  accordingly  we  find,  at  the  very  close  of  the 
Cambridge  and  Saybrook  Platform,  where  the  spirit  of  the 
instrument  seems  to  have  been  condensed  and  levelled,  this 
tremendous  sanction  of  civil  penalties  for  offences  against 
an  established  religion.  "  If  any  church,  one  or  more,  shall 
grow  schismatical,  rending  itself  from  the  communion  of 
other  churches,  or  shall  walk  incorrigibly  or  obstinately  in 
any  corrupt  way  of  their  own,  contrary  to  the  rule  of  the 
word,  in  such  case  the  magistrate  is  to  put  forth  his  coer- 
cive power,  as  the  matter  shall  require. "§ 

*  He  needed  it  sadly.     See  Gifford's  France,  iii.  277. 

t  Memoir  of  Roger  Williams,  p.  199. 

t  Cotton's  sentiments  were  fully  sustained  by  the  Puritans  at  home. 
The  celebrated  "  Pym  asserted,  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  legislature  to 
establish  true  religion,  and  to  punish  false."     (British  critic,  xv.  74.) 

§  Camb.  and  Sayb.  Plat.  p.  67.     Boston,  1829. 


82  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

As  the  matter  shall  require  !  O  would  Torquemada 
himself,  that  demon  of  the  Inquisition,  have  asked  for  a 
broader  license?  Yet  that  is  not  the  worst  of  it.  The 
Synod  who  published  this  plenary  indulgence  to  the  bitter- 
est civil  persecutor,  *'  went  on  comfortably,"  as  we  are  told 
(p.  6) ;  and,  as  we  are  further  told  (p.  11),  when  they  **  had 
finished  the  Platform  of  Church  Discipline,  they  did,  with 
an  extraordinary  elevation  of  soul  and  voice,  then  sing  to- 
gether the  song  of  Moses  the  servant  of  God,  and  the  song 
of  the  Lamb."*  Now,  under  the  principle  whose  praises 
they  thus  chanted,  with  their  souls'  whole  strength.  Chris- 
tians, (erring  ones,  if  you  please,  but  professing  and  calling 
themselves  Christians,)  were  imprisoned,  fined,  mangled, 
banished,  and  slain. t  And  if  there  be  much  to  choose  be- 
tween this  Puritan  paean  and  the  Te  Deum  of  the  Pope  and 
his  cardinals  after  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  I  have 
not  the  sagacity  to  discover  it.  Nor  is  this  all  which  I 
have  to  say,  and  which  historical  fidelity  requires  of  me. 
Puritanism,  like  Popery,  never  changes,  at  least  in  temper. 
The  sanction  here  given  to  any  and  to  all  persecution  "  as 
the  matter  shall  require,"  the  editor  of  the  volume  before 
me  is  constrained  to  acknowledge  has  never  been  repealed. 
The  Platform,  he  says  on  p.  1*2,  *'  never  has  been  super- 
seded, or  finally  annulled."  So  Rome  has  never  superseded 
or  formally  annulled  her  right  to  impose  an  interdict,  or 
burn  a  heretic.  But  Protestant  Episcopacy  has  done  so. 
She  has  blotted  from  her  statute-book,  for  near  two  hundred 
years,  this  impious,  God-defying  prerogative.  Puritanism 
and  Popery,  for  all  that  their  authentic  standards  can  say 
to  the  contrary,  may  still  pursue  a  hapless  dissenter  from 
their  infallible  dictation,  *'  as  the  matter  shall  require." 

*  In  the  Plymouth  laws,  p.  105,  new  edition,  Scripture  is  quoted  as 
a  sanction  to  all  their  laws — persecuting  ones  and  all. 

t  The  principle  ended  in  bloodsheddingjust  as  Roger  Williams  fore- 
told to  Endicott  that  it  would.     (Kiiowles's  Memoir,  p.  374.) 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  g3 

II. — A  second  and  favorite  argument  with  multitudes  is, 
that  the  Puritans  would  never  have  been  persecutors,  had 
they  not  learned  ferocious  lessons  from  their  contempora- 
ries. 

In  other  words,  bad  example  is  an  available  apology  for 
crime.  Now  it  is  not  very  marvellous  to  find  a  mere  polit- 
ical writer,  contemplating  such  an  argument  with  no  pecu- 
liar ave^;sion ;  for  he  knows  his  own  side  wants  it  as  much 
as  that  of  his  adversaries.  Sir  J.  Mackintosh,  therefore, 
can  say  without  a  qualm,  that  "  the  excesses  of  the  conti- 
nental Catholics,  which  were  generally  followed  by  hostility 
against  their  brethren,  sometimes  led  to  measures  of  rigor 
against  the  ultra-reformers,  [no  small  concession,  by  the 
way,  for  a  Whig  to  call  a  Puritan  an  ultra,]  in  order  to 
check  the  scandal  of  Protestant  dissension."*  And  again, 
he  can  say,  on  the  same  page,  that  dueen  Elizabeth  "  be- 
lieved, like  all  her  contemporaries,  that  the  formation  of 
new  bodies  in  the  Church,  without  her  permission,  was  as 
flaorrant  rebellion  as  the  establishment  of  courts  and  officers 
of  justice,  unauthorized  by  her,  would  be."  But  this  is  too 
worldly  an  argument  for  even  Mr.  Neal  to  stand  sponsor, 
I  should  say  "  pro-parent,"  for.  At  the  beginning  of  his 
fourth  volume,  therefore,  knowing  how  others  had  employed 
it,  and  would  expect  him  to  use  it  after  them,  to  justify  Pu- 
ritanism in  its  prime,  (remembering,  too,  no  doubt.  Dr. 
Watts's  unworthy  admonition  to  mollify,)  he  is  obliged  to 
repudiate  it.  "  And  though  the  vigorous  proceedings  of 
the  puritans  of  this  age  did  by  no  means  rival  those  of  the 
prelates,  before  and  after  the  civil  wars,  yet  they  are  so 
many  species  of  persecution,  and  not  to  he  justified,  even  by 
the  confusion  of  the  times  in  which  they  were  acted." f  Per- 
haps, however,  Neal  had  before  his  eye  the  pungent  query 
of  Chandler,  which   appeared   only  the  year  previous  to  the 

*  Mack.  England,  American  edit.  p.  374.  t  Neal,  iv.  pref.  p.  vi. 


S4  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

publication  of  this  preface.*  "  And  who  could  have  ima- 
gined, but  that  their  own  sufferings  for  conscience'  sake 
must  have  excited  in  them  an  utter  abhorrence  of  these  An- 
tichristian  principles,  by  which  they  themselves  had  so  deep- 
ly smarted  ?t  Or,  possibly,  he  might  have  read  a  little  in 
the  Independent  Whig,  which  was  published  while  he  was 
writing  about  New  England  and  the  Puritans.  In  one  of 
its  volumes,  that  virulent  anti-episcopal  journal  chastises 
even  the  Puritans,  thus  : — "  To  oppose  them  was  to  oppose 
God  ;  though  their  ways  were  far  from  resembling  his  ways. 
They  particularly  persecuted  others,  as  bitterly  as  if  they 
themselves  had  never  suffered  the  bitterness  of  persecu- 
tion."t  Such  things,  it  is  not  improbable,  made  Mr.  Neal 
somewhat  wary,  as  in  that  fourth  volume  he  was  approach- 
ing the  period  when  Puritanism  was  to  display  its  full-bfown 
vigor. 

But  the  ardor  of  apologists  on  this  side  of  the  water 
overleaps  such  considerations  as  made  Mr.  Neal  a  little 
timid.  Dr.  Hawes  can  say,  promptly,  "  The  fault  of  our 
fathers  was  the  fault  of  the  age.§  Mr.  Quincy  says,  that 
they  who  are  disposed  to  condemn  them  do  not  realize  "the 
prevailing  character  of  the  times."||  While  Dr.  Bacon,  with 
a  tact  and  taste  peculiarly  his  own,  tries  to  turn   the   tables 

*  Chandler's  book  came  out  in  A.  D.  1736.  Xeal's  preface  to  vol. 
iv.  of  his  Puritans,  dates  1737. 

f   Chandler  on  Persecution,  p.  396. 

X  Ind.  Whig,  iv.  280. 

§  Tribute  to  the  Pilgrims,  2d  edit.  p.  115. — "  The  spirit  of  the  age," 
says  a  Puritan  apologist,  "  inflamed  the  best  men  to  bigotry.'* — Mass. 
Hist.  Coll.  3d  series,  i.  1.  This  is  just  as  good  an  excuse  for  Laud  as 
for  them. 

II  Centennial  Address,  p.  26. — Mr.  Upham  sajs,  (Life  of  Vane,  p. 
147,)  that  the  Puritans  "  were  faithful  to  the  cause  as  they  understood 
it" — his  own  italics.  And  so  was  Archbishop  Laud  faithful  to  the  cause, 
as  he  understood  it.  Laud,  therefore,  was  juM  as  faithful  as  the  Puritans, 
on  (he  showing  of  their  own  advocate. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  85 

on  a  modern  accuser,  by  saying  that  ''  The  little  finger  of  a 
Lynch  committee  is  thicker  than  the  loins  of  a  Puritan 
magistracy."*  I  am  duly  obliged  to  Mr.  B.  for  his  sanc- 
tion to  such  an  argument ;  for  it  is  precisely  my  own — I  am 
all  along  saying  to  such  as  he  is,  when  they  talk  of  Epis- 
copal tyranny,  "  Look  first  at  the  tender  mercies  of  Puri- 
tanism, and  then  come  and  judge." 

But  to  my  more  immediate  purpose.  Be  it  that  the 
fault  of  the  age  gone  by,  or  the  prevailing  character  of  the 
times,  or  the  faults  of  this  age,  extenuate  (for  that  word 
Dr.  Hawes  positively  insists  on)  Puritan  persecutions.  If 
a  persecuting  model  may  thus  be  copied,  or  pleaded  as  am- 
ple palliation — Query  ?  May  not  the  Church  of  England 
refer  her  accusers  to  the  persecutions  of  the  Church  of 
Rome ;  and  the  Church  of  Rome  hers,  to  the  persecutions 
of  the  Pagans  ;  and  the  Pagans  theirs,  to  their  persecutions 
of  one  another  ?  for  Atheism  has  done  as  much  to  fill  the 
pages  of  the  annals  of  cruelty,  as  any  system  of  faith,  or 
philosophy,  or  medicine,  or  politics,  which  has  ever  pestered 
the  world. t  Suppose  Laud  himself  to  have  been  banished 
to  Boston,  Massachusetts,  according  to  the  purpose  of  Hugh 
Peters,  and  to  have  been  summoned  before  that  Court 
which  punished  John  Checkley  with  such  severity — what  a 
capital  defence  might  he  have  made,  if  he  had  only  had 
Cotton's  book  on  the  '''Bloody  Tenet,"  and  the  records  of 
Endicott's  administration,  doubled  down  in  dogs'  ears,  and 
ready  for  the  contest !  Verily,  I  doubt  if  even  that  court 
could  have  rebuked  him  as  sternly  as  they  did  the  luckless 
editor  of  Leslie  on  Episcopacy;  for  their  own  eloquence 
and  their  own  facts  would  have  struck  them  dumb. 

The  fault  of  the  age,  or  the  character  of  the  times,  suf- 
ficient to  excuse  a  persecutor?     Possibly  it  might  be  to  ex- 

*  Address  to  the  New  England  Society,  p.  33. 
t  Harris's  Charies  I.  232,  233. 
5 


86  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

cuse  a  persecutor  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  two  liundred 
years  since,  or  a  persecutor  in  the  Church  of  England  ;  for 
they,  as  Puritans  complained,  were  beclouded  with  Egyp- 
tian darkness,  and  knew  no  better.  But  themselves  be- 
longed to  Goshen,  they  were  children  of  the  light ;  they  did 
know  better.  They  professed  to  understand  and  argue  the 
subject  of  religious  toleration.  They  had  made  it  their 
hobby  for  years.  And  they  not  tolerate  ?  they  do  as  those 
whome  they  upbraided  have  all  along  done  ?  they  repu- 
diate Laud's  principles,  but  adopt  Laud's  practice  ?  Ah,  if 
Laud  could  have  preached  a  sermon  to  them  from  the  text, 
*'  Thou  that  abhorrest  idols,  dost  thou  commit  sacrilege," 
he  might  have  made  every  sinner  among  them  cry  out  with 
the  Philippian  jailer,  "  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?"* 

in. — A  third  favorite  argument  in  justification  of  the 
Puritans  is,  that  the  Church  of  England  was  essentially  Pa- 
pistical, ("only  half-reformed,"  as  Mr.  Mitchell  says;)t  and 
they  were  compelled  to  act  as  they  did,  to  put  new  life  into 
that  church,  which  Mr.  Bacon  calls,  so  graphically,  a  moul- 
dering mausoleum  of  the  once  glorious,  but  then  dead  or 
decaying  Reformation.^^  t 

59  See  Note  59. 

*  By  the  decision  of  Mr.  Hallam,  whom  the  Quarterly  Review- 
blames  for  too  great  general  advocacy  of  the  Puritans,  such  conduct  is 
most  particularly  and  thoroughly  condemned,  as  worse  than  that  of  an 
officer  of  the  Inquisition  itself. — "  In  men  hardly  escaped  from  a  similar 
peril,  in  men  who  had  nothing  to  plead  but  the  right  of  private  judgment, 
in  men  who  had  defied  the  proscriptive  authority  of  past  ages  and  of  es- 
tablished power,  the  crime  of  persecution  assumes  a  far  deeper  hue,  and 
is  capable  of  far  less  extenuation,  than  in  a  Roman  inquisitor." — Hal- 
lam's  Constit.  Hist.  i.  132.  Let  this  be  distinctly  remembered.  The 
Puritans  professed  to  be  infinitely  superior  to  the  church  they  had  aban- 
doned :  let  us  hold  them  to  their  professions.  Mr.  Hallam,  their  defender, 
being  authority,  they  have  no  excuse,  while  the  Pope  may  possibly  have 

le. 

t  Practical  Church  Member,  p.  22.  t  Bacon's  Manual,  p.  9. 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS.  g7 

It  is  amusing  to  see  how  much  stomachic  relief  it  af- 
fords such  writers,  as  have  just  been  quoted,  to  enjoy  a 
fling  at  Episcopacy ;  and  I  cannot  but  stop  a  moment  to  say, 
that  honest  old-fashioned  Presbyterians  were  far  more  kind- 
ly tempered.  Thus,  Symson,  (a  man  whom  one  of  the 
Mathers  calls  "  learned  and  very  holy" — Mather  on  Prayer, 
p.  16,)  in  his  history  of  the  Church,  published  in  1634,  does 
not  hesitate  to  say  of  that  dueen,  whom  Puritan  writers 
often  stigmatize  as  a  secret  Papist,  that  she  was  "  the 
strongest  bulwark  of  the  reformed  religion."* 

But  Puritan  writers  have  no  such  candor.  And  if  in 
any  thing  the  Church  of  England  has  received  unmixed 
hard  measure  from  them,  it  is  in  this,  that  they  insist 
upon  it  her  Protestantism  was  a  sheer  pretension. ^°  For 
while  suffering  in  this  way  at  their  hands,  at  the  Pope's  she 
was  suffering  just  as  heavily,  for  her  sympathies  with  Pu- 
ritanical heretics.  The  Pope  wrote  thus  to  his  nuncio  at 
the  court  of  Charles  I. :  "  Advise  the  clergy  to  desist  from 
that  foolish,  nay  rather  illiterate  and  childish  custom,  of  dis- 
tinguishing between  the  Protestant  [Episcopal]  and  Puritan 
doctrine. "t 

Could  any  situation  be  more  trying  or  critical,  than  that 
of  the  English  Churclf^  between  two  such  extremes,  both 
equally  and  direfully  inimical  ?!  There  she  was  on  an 
isthmus,  between  the  two  gulfs,  Puritanism  and  Popery, 
ready  to  swallow  her  up  alive,  and  either  of  them  willing  to 
drown  her   in  "  a  bottomless  pit."     What  should  she  do? 

6<'  See  Note  60. 

*  Symson's  Ch.  Hist.  3d  edition,  p.  240.  Compare  Beza's  sonnet  on 
her.     Phenix  Britannicus,  p.  452. 

t  British  Critic,  xv.  70. — Bergier,  in  his  Romish  Theological  Diction- 
ary, obeys  the  Pope,  and  mixes  Puritans  and  Episcopahans  under  one 
title. 

t  Laud's  Troubles,  p.  163. 


88  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

how  could  she  possibly  escape  slander  ?  If  she  treated  the 
Puritan  with  severity,  that  was  instantly  attributed  to  her 
secret  **  Papistry."  If  the  Papist,  with  the  same  severity, 
that  was  called  a  ruse  de  gutrre  to  avoid  censure,  or  dis- 
guise her  attachment  to  a  Church  which  they  said  was  no 
Church  at  all.^i* 

Now  the  fact  is,  that  the  laws  of  England  were  far  more 
severe  against  the  Papists  than  against  the  Puritans ;  and  if 
they  were  not  severe  in  the  letter  only,  but  severely  inflicted, 
the  sufferers  may  thank  the  Puritans  for  all  their  pangs. 
They  provoked  the  Government  to  deeds  of  harshness.  The 
execution  of  Mary  of  Scotland  has  often  been  called  the 
darkest  blot  on  the  history  of  Elizabeth's  reign  ;  yet,  says 
Short,  "no  persons  were  more  strenuous  than  the  Puritans 
in  their  endeavors  to  bring  the  Q,ueen  of  Scots  to  the  scaf- 
fold."! The  unfortunate  Charles  I.  was  driven  to  maltreat- 
ment of  Papists  to  save  a  tottering  throne.  "  Persecution 
of  Roman  Catholics  was  popular  in  England,  and  rendered 
in  some  degree  obligatory  on  the  King."f  Nevertheless, 
who,  among  all  the  sovereigns  of  England,  have  suffered 
more  under  Puritan  denunciation  for  'covert  *'  Papistry," 
than  Elizabeth  Tudor  and  Charles  Stuart? 

And  still  shall  it  be  assumed  that  the  Government  of 
England,  under  such  persons,  was  virtually  Papistical  ? 
Why,  as  an  author  often  quoted  shows,  it  was  the  unneces- 
sary and  uncalled-for  severity  of  that  Government,  provoked 
and  goaded  on  by  Puritan  clamors,  which  compelled  Ro- 
manists to  fly  from  England,  for  the  same  shelter  which  Pu- 
ritans declare  they  themselves  sought  in  this  western  hemi- 
sphere.§     Lord  Baltimore   and   his    associates  fled   from  a 

«»  See  Note  Gl. 

*  Savage's  Winthrop,  i.  58,  59.         t  Short's  Hist.  Eng.  Ch.  i.  443. 

X  British  Critic,  xv.  75. 

§  Bozman  confirms  this.     He  eays  distinctly  of  the  Puritans  ;  "  By 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  89 

virtual  Puritan  persecution  to  the  shores  of  Maryland.* 
And  if  he  obtained,  as  he  did,  a  comfortable  shelter  there — 
gave  Popery  a  foothold  in  these  United  States  it  might 
hardly  have  gained  to  this  passing  hour,  and  laid  the  foun- 
dation of  an  ascendency  it  certainly  would  never  have  at- 
tained to.  Papists  may  thank  the  Puritans  for  these  inesti- 
mable favors. ^2  When,  then,  Puritan  editors,  pamphleteer- 
ers,  and  lecturers,  declaim  against  Popery's  giant  strides 
here,  let  them  remember  who  first  virtually  planted  it. 
Protestant  Episcopacy,  if  suffered  to  pursue  the  even  tenor 
of  her  way,  would  long  have  kept  it  in  abeyance,  and  erect- 
ed here,  as  elsewhere,  ''  the  strongest  bulwarks"  against  an 
unreformed  religion.  But  Protestant  Episcopacy  is  the  ob- 
ject of  Puritanism's  longest  hate.  Like  Juno's  jealousy  of 
Troy,  it  pursues  her  even  in  her  low  estate  :  *'  necdum  an- 
tiquum saturata  dolorem.^'i  It  would  not  allow  her  a  bish- 
op here  to  the  latest  possible  period :  see  that  precious 
pamphlet,  "  Minutes  of  the  Convention  of  Delegates  from 
the  Synod  of  New-York  and  Philadelphia,  and  from  the  As- 
sociations of  Connecticut,  held  annually  from  1766  to  1775 
inclusive,"  and  which  leaked  out  of  the  press  at  the  safe 
and  distant  date  of  1843.J:  But  Puritanism  sent  Popery 
here,  in  1632 :  let  the  disastrous  instrumentality  be  "graven 
with  an  iron  pen  and  lead  in  the  rock  forever  !" 

IV. — A  fourth  argument  in  justification  of  Puritanism  is, 
that  if  it  did  not  manifest  as  due  a  love  of  charity  as  might 

62  See  Note  62. 

their  clamors  for  a  vigorous  execution  of  the  laws  against  Papists,  it  now 
became  necessary  for  them  also  to  look  about  for  a  place  of  refuge." 
Maryland,  pp.  230,  231. 

*  European  Sett.  ii.  220,  221.  Chahners's  Revolt  of  the  Colonies, i. 
62.     Eddis's  Letters,  pp.  40,  41.     Hewatt's  South  Carolina,  i.  36. 

t  ^neid,  V.  608. 

X  And  all  this  in  spite  of  Dr.  Chandler's  full  explanations  in  1767. 
See  Chandler's  Appeal,  chaps,  ix.  x.  xi. 


90  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

possibly  have  been  expected,  and  did  not  make  the  imme- 
diate conversion  of  the  Indians  its  "  main,  principal,  and 
only  end,"  after  its  "  free  profession"  and  the  **  royal  inten- 
tion" of  its  charters,  it  did  nevertheless  manifest  a  most 
astonishing  and  zealous  love  of  learning,  as  soon  as  it  had 
effected  a  lodgment  on  these  far-off  shores.^^ 

Indeed !  But  this  is  a  tack  on  which  a  Churchman 
might  hardly  expect  to  have  been  taken,  who  remembered 
what  South  appositely  calls,  Harry  Vane's  "  villainous  and 
monstrous  advice."  Vane  saw,  what  others  could  easily 
see,  if  not  bat-blind,  how  learning  and  its  adjuncts  were  pil- 
lars and  stays  to  the  Episcopal  cause.  So  he  wanted  "  learn- 
ing discountenanced,  and  the  universities  threatened,  their 
revenues  to  be  sold,  their  colleges  to  be  demolished,  the 
law  to  be  reformed  after  the  same  model,  the  records  of 
the  nation  to  be  burnt."*  Or,  if  South  be  distrusted  as  a 
priest,  (though  he  quotes  every  word  which  I  have  quoted,) 
let  us  see  what  so  calm  a  lay  observer  as  my  Lord  Bacon 
testifies,  and  who  was  an  eye-witness  of  Puritanical  demon- 
strations and  tendencies  at  an  earlier  day.  *'  For  while," 
he  says,  "  they  inveigh  against  a  dumb  ministry,  they  make 
too  easy  and  too  promiscuous  an  allowance  of  such  as  they 
account  preachers,  having  not  respect  enough  to  their  learn- 
ings in  other  arts,  which  are  handmaids  to  divinity,  [this 
corroborates  clearly  Vane's  hit  at  the  universities ;]  not  re- 
spect enough  to  years,  except  it  be  in  case  of  extraordinary 
gift ;  not  respect  enough  to  the  gift  itself,  which  many 
times  is  none  at  all.  For,  God  forbid  that  every  man  that 
can  take  unto  himself  boldness  to  speak  an  hour  together 

«'  See  Note  63. 

*  South's  Sermons,  iii.  441. — Compare  Wood's  Ath.  Oxon,  ii.  561, 
562.  Biographic  UniverscUe,  41,  503,  a.  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  series, 
vi.  254.  Allen's  Diet.  646.  Baillie's  quotation  from  Barrow's  Discov- 
ery.    Dissuasive,  p.  50. 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS.  91 

in  a  church  upon  a  text,  should  be  admitted  for  a  preacher, 
though  he  mean  never  so  well."*    This  is  as  cool  a  descrip- 
tion, and  yet  as  thorough  a  picture  of  the  subject,  as  one  of 
my  lord's  decisions  in  the  Court  of  Chancery.     But,  after 
all,  South  cannot  be  far  from  right  in  every  thing  he  says  of 
Puritan  depreciation  of  learning;  for  one  of  his  caustic  re- 
torts has  nailed  the  matter  to  the  counter.      "  Granted," 
said  he,  "  that  God  has  no  need  of  human  learning.     But  if 
he  has  not,  still   less   has  he  need  of  human  ignorance." 
Language  like  this  is  as  memorable  as  a  national  proverb, 
and  equally  illustrative  of  the  times  which  engendered  it.^* 
But  "  circumstances  alter  cases,"  we  are  informed  :  the 
Puritans  did  not  decry  universities,  or  "  the  arts  which  are 
handmaids  to  divinity,"  on  this  side  of  the  water.     O  no, 
by  no  means.     So  soon  as  they  are  fixed  where  themselves 
are  uppermost,  and  a  little  of  this  world's  lore  will  enrich 
and  dignify,  they  take  steps  for  amassing  it  with   all  wari- 
ness and  speed.     Schools  and  colleges  are  valuable  enough, 
when  they  can  be  levers  to  uplift  their  fame  and  fortunes  ; 
and  not  twenty  years  pass  over  their  heads,  before  they  lay 
the  foundations  of  the  first  university  in  the  country.     The 
Puritans  landed  in  1620,  and  Harvard  University  was  found- 
ed in  1638.     But  though  Puritans  had  denounced,  as  Dis- 
senters do  still  denounce,  the  close  connexion  between  the 
English  universities  and  the  English  Church,  on  what  prin- 
ciples was  their  own  first  seminary  of  learning  established? 
It  was  dedicated  to  Christ  and  the  Church  :   Christo  et  Ec- 
clesicB  was  the  very  motto  of  its  seal,  and  remains  such  to 
the  present  day.     Alas !   if  they  who  first  gloried  in  that 
device,  could  now  walk  the  halls  of  Cambridge,   and  the 
streets  of  Boston,    how,   from  their   inmost    hearts,  would 
burst  the  anticipated  classic  lamentation,  ''  Fuimus  Troes, 

6^  See  Note  64. 

*  Montagu's  Bacon,  vii.  85. 


92  REVIEW  OK  THE  PURITANS. 

fuit  Ilium  ;  scdjam  seges  est  ubi  Trojafuit.    Fuit  AngliOf 
fuit  Nov- Anglia,  fuit  Bostonia  Europcca  Americana  J'* 

And,  now,  does  it  require  a  Caledonian  second  sight,  to 
see  through  the  changes   of  this  shifting  scene  ?     Cannot 
a  very  tolerable  common  sense  understand  that  the  patrons 
of  the  English  universities  were  Churchmen,  and  that  dema- 
gogues, who  would   undermine   and  prostrate   the   ancient 
government,  must  do  so  by  flattering  a  class  far,  far  below 
them?     What   made    Dick    the    butcher    actually    say,    in 
Cade's  time,   "  The  first  thing  we  do  let's  kill  all  the  law- 
yers?"   and  Mr.   Orestes  Brownson,  in  his  address  to  the 
laboring  classes  in  1840,  virtually  say,  "The  first  thing  we 
do  let's  kill  all  the  priests  ?"     Why,  the  institutions  of  the 
Law  and  of  the  Gospel  stand  in  the  way  of  radicals;  and,  of 
course,  the  first  step  towards  the  destruction  of  those  insti- 
tutions is  to  set  their  representatives  aside.     Then  the  way 
to  spoil  is   unobstructed.     But  let  the   spoil  be  gained,  and 
let  it  be  ascertained  that  Law  and  Gospel  will  de  facto,  if 
not  dejure,  help  them  to  hold   fast  their  ill-sought  gains  ; 
and  forthwith  the  destructives  of  yesterday  become  the  con- 
servatives of  to-day.     Dr.  Azel  Backus,  in  a  Puritan  elec- 
tion sermon  in  1798,  compared  the  then  threatening  demo- 
crats to  that  pre-born  Jesuit,  Absalom  ;  and  put  into   their 
mouths,  as  a  very  text,  Absalom's  beguiling  sigh,  **  O  that 
I  were  made  judge  in  the  land,  that  every  man,  which  hath 
any  suit  or  cause  might  come  unto  me,  and  I  would  do  him 
justice  !"     He  and  his  friends  thought  that  they  were  little 
better  than  conspirators,  and  dreaded  their  ascendency  as  a 
death-blow  to  the  Constitution.    That  ascendency,  however, 
was  soon  attained,  and  has  ever  since  been  preserved.     And 
what  is  the  result  ?     Why,  under  it,  one  of  the  most  care- 

*  See  Hutchinson's  Collection, p.  249. — Also,  Chauncey's  Seasonable 
Thoughts,  p.  372  ;  where  Increase  Mather  prophetically  says,  "  I  am 
verily  afraid  that,  in  process  of  time,  New  England  will  be  the  wofullest 
place  in  all  America." 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  93 

fully-framed  conservative  powers  of  the  Government,  the 
veto,  has  been  used  so  freely  that  it  has  again  and  again 
been  said,  the  veto  is  too  monarchical  and  must  be  abol- 
ished.    • 

Now  all  such  illustrations  as  these  can  be  covered  by 
the  vicissitudes  of  Puritan  history.  In  England,  in  the 
days  of  its  infancy,  Puritanism  was  opposed  to  Universities,* 
to  an  Establishment,  to  the  concentration  of  power  in  rulers. 
In  America,  in  its  manhood,  it  has  been  the  stanch  advo- 
cate of  all  the  three/5  In  respect  to  the  last  point,  though 
it  once  gloried  in  its  liberalism,  and  in  its  devotion  to  popu- 
lar freedom,  it  is  nevertheless  believed,  that  the  old  political 
fear  that  our  government  is  _not  strong  enough,  has  never 
abounded  more  than  in  Connecticut  and  Massachusetts  ;  and 
that  there  it  still  lurks,  in  more  secret  places  than  the  Union 
besides  contains. t 

It  is  no  consolation  to  be  thought  inflexibly  destitute  of 
charity.  I  do  not  make  these  statements  as  a  politician, 
for  I  am  not  one  ;  (Tros,  Tyriusque,  mihi,  nullo  discrimine 
agetur  ,)  but  as  attempting  something  of  the  province  of  an 
historian,  in  defence  of  the  Church  it  is  my  privilege  to  be- 
long to.  Yet  I  do  love  light,  and  so  well,  as  to  prize  it, 
even  if  it  give  forth,  as  it  comes,  a  portion  of  inherent  calo- 
ric. Those  who  can  show  any  consideration  of  my  motives 
must  therefore  excuse  me  for  saying,  that  when  I  find  what 
the  Puritans  were  in  England — how  languid  their  zeal  there 
for  University  wisdom — ^and  when  I  find  that  they  were 
never — among  all  their  faults,  (though  called  in  Naebe's 
Ecc.  Hist.  p.  534,  scelcratissimi,  et  nequissiini,)  I  never 
knew  this  charged  to  them — never  ignorant  of  their  best 

65  See  Note  65. 

*  Higginson  described  them  as  sinks  of  corruption. — Hutchinson's 
Coll.  p.  27. 

t  See  Fisher  Ames's  Works,  p. 518. 

5* 


94  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

worldly  interest,  or  inattentive  to  it : — and  further,  when  I 
know  that  the  monopoly  of  a  people's  education  is  a  prize, 
after  which  the  gentlemen  to  whom  I  have  supposed  Absa- 
lom a  great  grandfather,  eagerly  aim — and  then  when  I  see 
the  Puritans  change  their  conduct,  but  not  their  policy ^  and 
strive  lustily  to  fill  the  minds  of  youth  with  "  orthodox" 
knowledge,* — I  confess  myself  unprepared  to  worship  them 
as  most  disinterested  lovers  of  learning, t  and  unable  to 
pronounce  the  praises  chanted  over  them,  as  such,  min- 
strelsy of  surpassing  concord. 

But  says  Mr.  Bacon,  in  his  favorite  ad  captandum  way 
of  demolishing  objections  he  cannot  argue  down,  '  You  are 
egregiously  in  error.  Lighlfoot  was  a  Puritan,  Owen  was 
a  Puritan,  Selden  was  a  Puritan,  Bunyan  was  a  quasi  one, 
and  John  Milton,  instar  omnium,  was  a  genuine  one  ;  and 
your  talk  about  Puritan  opposition  to  learning  is  but  empty 
words.'t 

So  Fenelon  was  a  Roman  Catholic,  and  Bossuet  was 
another,  and  Bourdaloue,  says  Bp.  Warburton,  though  a 
member  of  the  worst  society^  and  the  worst  Church  on 
earth,  produced  the  best  sermons  which  ever  were  written  ; 
and  therefore,  Mr.  B.,  when  you  dare  to  lisp  another  sylla- 
ble about  the  Romish  Church,  as  a  mother  of  abominations, 
remember  well  your  own  position  on  the  ^'^d  of  December, 
1838.  O  this  appeal  to  names,  though  taking  no  doubt 
with  multitudes,  and  far  easier  and  more  sonorous  than 
solid  logic,  is  a  wretched  way  of  settling  the  merits  of  thou- 
sands, who  claim  their  glory,  or  suffer  by  their  dishonor.  It 
is  the  infidel's  way  of  determining  the  merits  of  religion. 
Look  at  Abraham,  he  says,  prevaricating  ;  at  David,  polluted 

*  Ancient  Charters,  &c.  pp.  74,  197. 

t  The  learning  they  did  have,  Baillie,  the  Presbyterian  says,  was  all 
gotten  "  before  they  entered  into  their  new  way."     Dissuasive,  p.  129. 
\  Address  to  the  New  England  Soc.  pp.  26-29. 
§  He  was  a  Jesuit. 


I 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  95 

by  adultery  ;  at  James  and  John,  imprecating  fire  from 
heaven — nay  look  at  professing  Christians  now — and  talk 
no  more  to  me  of  the  honesty  or  purity  or  charity,  of  those 
who  arrogate  a  holy  name.^^  But  Mt.  Bacon  sees  not  that 
he  is  wielding  a  two-edged  sword,  which  can  be  turned 
against  himself  And,  moreover,  he  does  not  wield  the 
sword  he  does  brandish,  with  over-much  dexterity.  Be 
it  that  Lightfoot  was  once  a  Puritan.  We  have  a  fair  reason, 
if  he  were  not  a  hypocrite  in  his  new  faith,  for  saying  he 
was  quite  sick  of  his  old  one  ;  for  he  afterwards  conformed 
to  the  Established  Church."  Be  it  that  Owen  was  one. 
He  was  once  a  sturdy  Presbyterian  ;  but  was  converted  to 
Independency  by  reading  Master  Cotton's  book  on  "  the 
power  of  the  keys  :"*  Master  Cotton,  be  it  duly  recollected, 
believing  fully  in  the  power  of  the  keys,  as  well  as  in  the 
"  Bloody  Tenet,"  when  he  sat  unmolested  beneath  the 
shadow  of  the  Puritanic  fig-tree. ^^  And  if  Owen  was  con- 
verted by  him,  he  took  the  change  very  condescendingly; 
for  it  made  him,  what  his  Presbylerianism  never  would  have 
made  him,  vice-chancellor  of  the  University  of  Oxford. 
Cromwell  put  him  there,  because  he  had  become  a  supple 
auxiliary,  as  an  Independent.  Had  he  continued  what  he 
once  was,  that  selfish  usurper  might  have  said  over  him,  as 
over  a  friend  less  accommodating,  "  Sir  Harry  Vane !  Sir 
Harry  Vane !  Good  Lord  deliver  me  from  Sir  Harry 
Vane  !"t 

As  to  Selden,  he  w^as  an  Erastian — a  man  who  believed 
in  no  church  government  at  all  : — does  that  prove  he  was  a 
Puritan  ?  Nevertheless,  says  his  biographer,  Dr.  Wilkins, 
"  though  he  had  great  latitude  in  his  principles,  with  regard 
to  ecclesiastical  power,  yet  he  had  a  sincere  regard  for  the 

66  See  Note  66.  "  gge  Note  67.  ^a  ggg  j^^^g  gg_ 

*  The  next  thing,  with  a  Puritan,  to  the  Bible. — Magnalia,  ii.  180. 
t  Upham's  Vane,  p.  243, 


96  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

Church  of  England."*  And  he  certainly  could  give  new- 
lights^  as  he  calls  them,  what  Baillie,  the  Presbyterian, 
styles  a  very  ''  bold  vvipe."t  How  far  do  these  things  go  to 
the  same  account  ? 

Furthermore,  though  "  Cromwell  employed  all  his  in- 
terest to  engage''  him  "  to  answer  Eikon  Basilike,  he  utterly 
refused  :" — will  Mr.  Bacon  imitate  him  in  this  respect,  and 
decline  impugning  the  works  of  Episcopalians  ?  And,  final- 
ly, he  wrote  "  A  tract  proving  the  Nativity  of  our  Saviour 
to  be  on  the  25th  of  December" — a  tract  replete  with  pro- 
digious learning,  "  insomuch,"  says  its  editor,  "  that  it  will 
require  three  lives  in  the  Law,  at  least,  to  purchase  and  pe- 
ruse those  printed  pieces  and  manuscripts,  out  of  which  he 
hath  collected  his  quotations." — Will  Mr.  Bacon  imitate 
him,  and  keep  next  Christmas?  He  can  do  so  now,  and 
eat  mince-pie  and  custard,  without  danger  of  a.  Puritan  fine. 
Lightfoot  once  persuaded  the  Puritans  to'keep  Christmas — 
so  here  will  be  another  apology. J 

As  to  Bunyan's  Puritanic,  it  is  probably  an  honor  of 
which  the  celebrated  tinker  would  have  been  somewhat 
chary.  He  went  by  that  "  fearful  name,"  as  Mr.  Knowles 
calls  it,  which  Puritans  so  often  denounced  and  persecuted 
— the  name  of  Anabaptist.  Had  he  opened  his  conventicle 
in  Boston,  he  would  undoubtedly  have  followed  Roger  Wil- 
liams, into  the  shelter  of  a  wilderness,  and  the  more  merci- 
ful companionship  of  untutored  savages.  And  even,  as  to 
Bunyan's  originality,  perhaps  Mr.  Bacon  would  have  been 
less  anxious  to  appeal  to  the  book  which  shows  it,  as  the 
"  most  immortal  [has  immortality  degrees  ?]  of  the  works  of 
human  genius,"  if  he  had  remembered,  that  Bp.  Patrick's 
Parable  of  the  Pilgrim  was  considerably  older,  and  was 
highly  popular,  (I  myself  possess  a  copy  of  the  sixth  edition 

*  General  Biographical  Dictionary,  ix.  150. 
t  Todd's  Life  of  Brian  Walton,  i.  41. 
t  Lightfoot's  Works,  i.  48,  49. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  97 

when  the  work  was  not  five  and  twenty  years  in  being,)  that 
Patrick  confesses  its  main  idea  was  not  original  to  his  own 
mind  ;  and  further,  that  Southey,  who  was  passionately  fond 
of  Banyan,  admits  he  must  have  seen  Bernard's  "  Legal 
proceedings  in  Man-shire  against  sin,"  and  moreover,  that 
"  there  is  as  much  wit  in  it,  as  in  the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  and 
it  is  that  vein  of  wit  which  Bun) an  has  worked  with  such 
good  success."* 

And,  finally,  as  to  Milton,  lord  paramount  of  the  domain 
of  Puritanic  glory,  if  Mr.  Bacon  claims  his  talent,  which  no 
one  can  doubt,  as  a  consecration  of  the  name  of  his  sect,f 
what  is  to  become  of  his  Arianism  and  his  polygamy  ?  do 
they  go  to  the  same  account  ?  I  know  not  how  to  dicho- 
tomize the  Latin  Secretary  of  the  Commonwealth,  and  give 
his  friends  his  intellect,  and  his  enemies  his  principles.  I 
remember  the  question  to  the  military  Romish  diocesan, 
who  would  now  and  then  don  the  cuirass,  and  appear  at  the 
head  of  a  regiment,  *'  May  it  please  your  reverence,  if  a  can- 
non ball  were  to  send  the  Colonel  to  Purgatory,  what  would 
become  of  the  Bishop  ?"  Mr.  Bacon  may  have  some  papal 
secret  for  solving  the  enigma ;  but  until  he  produces  it,  I 
must  hold  that  he  is  profoundly  welcome  to  say,  Puritanism 
has  brought  forth  Milton's  brain,  if  I  can  say,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  has  likewise  brought  forth  his  theories  of  theology 
and  of  morals. I 

V. — A  fifth  argument  in  justification  of  Puritanism,  and 
the  last  my  limits  will  allow  me  to  notice,  is,  that  its  eccle- 

*  Southey's  Bunyan,  p.  xcii. 

t  The  Edinburgh  Review,  almost  as  good  authority  as  Mr.  Bacon, 
insists,  however,  that  Milton  was  no  Puritan.  Selections  Edinburgh  Re- 
view, ii.  61. 

X  Baillie's  Dissuasive,  pp.  116,  144.  Edwards'  Gangraena,  Pt.  i. 
p.  29,  for  his  doctrine  of  divorce. — Leslie  in  his  Preface  to  his  History  of 
Sin  and  Heresy,  has  some  very  pertinent  comments  on  the  theological 
mistakes  of  the  Paradise  Lost.  Milton's  w^orst  mistakes,  however,  do 
not  appear  there,  but  in  his  treatise  on  Christian  doctrine. 


9^  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

siastical  system  **  presents  the  most  efficient  barrier  to  the 
inroads  of  heresy,  and  false  doctrine,  and  general  corrup- 
tion, into  the  churches  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ."* 

Says  Mr.  Bacon,  as  to  what  Puritanism  (or  Congrega- 
tionalism, if  that  be  a  softer  appellation,)  can  do,  "there  is 
nothing  to  hinder  our  churches  from  exerting  their  powers 
and  capabilities  to  the  uttermost.  The  way  is  open  for 
them  to  do  all  the  good  they  can."t  And,  then,  as  to  what 
it  has  done,  or  is  doing.  Says  Mr.  Mitchell,  "  Now  this  the 
Congregational  system  eminently  does.  It  makes  practical 
Christians."!  Says  Dr.  Hawes,  **  The  principles  and  polity 
of  the  Congregational  churches  are  powerfully  influential 
in  promoting  vital  godliness. "§ 

Under  this  head  I  could  say  not  a  little,  from  my  own 
experience  and  observation.  But  there  lies  before  me  the 
testimony  of  an  older  witness,  a  layman,  and  one  the  be- 
nevolence of  whose  heart  and  the  soundness  of  whose  un- 
derstanding, many  Congregationalists  and  Presbyterians, 
(to  say  nothing  of  very  many  Churchmen,)  have  often  ac- 
knowledged. He  can  speak  to  far  greater  effect  than  I 
can ;  though  I  made  my  references  thicker  and  more 
troublesome  than  ever.  Moreover  his  testimony  does,  what 
perhaps  it  would  be  called  invidious  in  me  to  do.  It  arrays 
the  practical  result,  concerning  the  Congregational  and 
Episcopal  systems  ;  and  must  produce  a  deep  impression 
on  all,  whom  prejudice  has  not  seared  with  her  brand.  1 
allude  to  a  speech  made  at  Boston,  by  the  Hon.  Edward.  A. 
Newton,  before  the  Board  of  Missions  for  the  Diocese  of 
Massachusetts,  Jan.  llth,  1842. 

Having  sketched  something  of  the  history  and  results  of 

*  Punchard'3  View,  176.  t  Manual,  p.  156. 

t  Practical  Church  Member,  p.  56. 

§  Tribute,  2d  ed.  p.  86. — A  decay  of  vital  godliness  is  unhesitatingly 
ascribed  to  contempt  for  Congregational  discipline.  Wise's  Vindication, 
.1772,  p.  77. 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS.  99 

the  Congregational  system  in  other  lands,  Mr.  N.  comes  to 
the  subject  more  immediately  at  hand,  and  observes — 

*'  How  has  the  faith  of  the  Gospel  been  preserved  in  the 
keeping  of  the  Congregational  Church  here  ?  in  what  part 
of  this  great  nation  has  it  planted  itself,  out  of  New  Eng- 
land ?  What  have  been  the  fruits  of  its  production  ?  I 
must  here  premise,  that  I  have  it  not  in  my  heart  to  say  one 
word  that  should  give  just  offence  to  this  respectable  de- 
nomination. I  have  in  it  friends  I  exceedingly  love  and 
respect ;  I  honor  and  admire  the  piety  and  zeal  for  religion, 
so  many  among  it  have  exhibited  ;  but  I  cannot  close  my 
eyes  upon  the  defectiveness,  and  mischievous  workings  of 
its  system,  and,  on  an  occasion  like  the  present,  when  I  am 
called  upon  to  enforce  the  claims  of  the  Church  of  which  I 
am  a  member,  it  is  both  my  right,  and  my  duty,  to  show  its 
superiority,  as  well  by  contrast  and  comparison  as  by  the 
exhibition  of  its  own  inherent  merits.  I  must  not,  there- 
fore, be  charged  with  wilful  and  unnecessary  offence,  in  the 
prosecution  of  a  warrantable  and  legitimate  object.  I  en- 
tertain no  unkindly  feelings  towards  any  body  of  Christians 
upon  earth. 

"  The  origin  of  the  Congregational  Church  in  this  country 
is  well  known  ;  fleeing,  professedly,  from  persecution  in  the 
old  world,  it  established  itself  in  the  new,  and  closed  forth- 
with the  door  against  every  competitor.  It  brought  to  its 
aid  the  entire  strength  of  the  civil  power,  and  the  no  less 
powerful  agency  of  prejudice  and  resentment ;  though  a 
fugitive  itself  from  alleged  persecution,  it  became  a  stern 
and  unhesitating  persecutor  of  others,  and  that,  too,  in  a 
day  of  extended  light  and  liberality.  Nevertheless  it  could 
not,  and  it  has  not,  extended  itself  beyond  its  original  limits ; 
it  could  not,  and  it  has  not,  maintained  entire  its  doctrines 
and  authority  therein ;  it  has  given  way,  by  degrees,  to 
every  species  of  attack,  until  made  to  swarm  with  almost 
every    imaginable    error.      Notwithstanding    its    assumed 


100  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

claims  to  scriptural  authority,  notwithstanding  its  possession 
of  the  exclusive  influence  of  the  civil  power  to  enforce  its 
claims,  it  has  declined,  and  manifests  increasing  symptoms 
of  still  further  decay.  How  seldom  do  we  hear  of  a  new 
Orthodox  Congregational  Church  being  erected  in  any  of 
our  towns  !  who  witnesses  this  Church  extending  itself  in 
any  part  of  our  broad  dominion  out  of  New  England  ?  Can 
such  an  instrumentality,  then,  be  of  divine  appointment  ? 
Again,  has  she  preserved,  does  she  maintain  uniformly, 
her  own  original  standards  of  faith  ?  Look  at  her  Confes- 
sion of  Faith,  established  in  this  very  city,  in  the  year  1680, 
after  most  mature  deliberation,  and  inquire,  who  acknow- 
ledges it  now  ;  or,  if  any  of  its  individual  members  do,  who 
preaches  it  from  the  pulpit  ?  Who  maintains  it  publicly  ? 
who  is  honest  enough,  and  bold  enough,  to  dare  to  do  so? 
Can  such  be  the  accredited  agent  of  a  Master,  *  the  same 
yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever,'  '  with  whom  is  no  variable- 
ness, nor  shadow  of  turning  V  The  age  of  miracles  is 
passed  ;  the  age  for  God's  direct  interposition  in  the  affairs 
of  men  is  alike  gone  by  :  he  intends  now,  as  is  most  appa- 
rent, to  accomplish  all  his  designs  on  the  earth  through  hu- 
man agency  ;  he  has  done  all  by  direct  revelation  to  his 
vineyard  that  can  be  done  for  it ;  and  now  it  remains  for 
men  to  work  out  the  appointed  salvation,  always  in  entire 
dependence  upon  divine  grace.  Will  a  weak  and  ineffi- 
cient confederacy,  then,  such  as  the  Congregational  Church 
is,  be  competent  to  such  a  service  ?  has  the  like  been  effec- 
tual for  any  great  and  good  end  for  any  length  of  time, 
even  ?  No,  sir,  it  cannot ;  it  may  endure  for  awhile,  and 
do  good  for  a  short  period  in  particular  states  of  society,  as 
we  have  seen  it  do ;  but  to  accomplish  and  sustain  perma- 
nent, lasting  good,  other  systems  are  necessary.  This  may 
be  shown  by  a  reference  to  facts.  Fifty  years  ago  there 
were  as  many  Orthodox  Congregational  ministers  in  this 
Commonwealth  as  there  are  now.     I  have  no  means  of  pro- 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  IQI 

curing  a  precise  and  entirely  accurate  statement  on  this 
head,  but  I  have  reason  to  think  I  am  much  within  the 
limits  of  the  truth  in  this  particular,  because  T  hear  it  fre- 
quently and  confidently  affirmed,  that  one  half  of  the 
Churches  of  this  order  that  were  Orthodox  fifty  years  ago 
are  the  reverse  now.  Then  let  it  be  considered  that,  within 
fifty  years,  the  population  of  this  Commonwealth  has  more 
than  doubled.  During  this  time,  this  Church  has  put  forth 
all  its  energies  to  sustain  itself.  It  has  organized  innu- 
merable agencies  to  suit  its  ends ;  caused  the  laws  of  the 
Commonwealth  to  be  modified  to  render  itself  more  popu- 
lar ;  effected  the  repeal  of  that  most  righteous  article  of 
our  Constitution,  which  compelled  every  man  to  support 
the  public  worship  of  Almighty  God  according  to  his  ability, 
because  it  seemed  to  operate  against  its  influence ;  pro- 
moted those  religious  excitements,  which  have  led  to  such 
frightful  extravagances,  and  left  such  fearful  results  in  their 
train.  Still  its  object  is  unattained  ;  it  does  not  increase 
either  in  numbers,  or  in  power,  or  spirituality ,  hut  the  re- 
verse. Sir,  it  gives  me  no  pleasure  to  lay  these  statements 
before  you.  I  do  it  only  under  a  strong  sense  of  duty,  and 
for  just  and  high  considerations. 

"  Compare  now  the  Episcopal  Church,  through  the  same 
period.  Fifty  years  ago,  the  Episcopal  Church,  out  of  one 
or  two  of  the  Southern  States,  had  hardly  any  existence  in 
this  country  ;  there  were  in  the  whole  nation,  then,  one 
hundred  and  seventy  of  its  clergy  only.  While,  in  this  pe- 
riod, the  population  of  the  country  has  more  than  doubled, 
and  Congregationalism  has  not  advanced  one  step,  the  Epis- 
copal Church  has  added,  one  thousand*  to  the  number  of 
its  clergy.      While  Congregationalism   is   confined   within 

*  The  number  of  clergy  in  the  Episcopal  Church  now,  is  1231,  i.  e. 
Dec.  1844.  In  1759  there  were  but  16  Episcopal  clergy  in  New- York, 
New  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania !  See  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  ser.  i.  157. — 
Note  by  T.  W.  C. 


102  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

the  narrow  limits  of  New  England,  the  Episcopal  Church 
has  posted  itself  over  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the 
land,  and  is  daily  and  almost  hourly  increasing.  While 
Congregationalists  are  divided,  and  at  variance  among  them- 
selves, she  is  united  and  harmonious.  She  cannot  he  divi- 
ded. What  she  believed  and  taught  in  1680,  and  from  the 
period  of  the  Reformation,  she  believes  and  teaches  now, 
and  nothing  beside  ;  no  essential  error  in  doctrine^  or  in 
practice,  has  followed  in  her  footsteps.  She  is  subject  to  a 
firm  and  decided,  though  mild  and  moderate  government, — 
one  of  written  laws,  founded  in  reason  and  experience,  just 
and  wise,  complete  in  all  its  parts.  She  has  a  sound  and 
scriptural  liturgy,  faithfully  guarded  against  sudden  and  im- 
proper changes,  which  all  the  Christian  world  admires. 
She  has  also  equally  well-guarded,  fixed,  and  approved  arti- 
cles of  faith,  which  every  intelligent  Orthodox  Christian 
admits  to  be  scriptural.  She  has  a  body  of  clergy  inferior 
to  none  in  the  country  for  wisdom,  piety,  and  learning;  and 
where  her  churches  have  got  beyond  the  point  of  struggle 
for  existence,  she  exhibits  the  most  delightful  evidences  of 
sound  religious  character  in  her  members  :  and  even  within 
the  circumscribed  influence  of  her  body  in  our  own  diocese 
— yet  in  the  very  spring-time  of  its  existence — her  salutary 
influence  on  other  denominations,  by  the  sobriety,  order, 
and  intelligence  she  manifests,  is  most  decisive.  Add  to  all 
this,  she  is  the  most  tolerant,  mild,  and  forbearing,  towards 
those  who  differ  from  her,  of  any  known  body  of  Christians 
on  the  earth.  Can  we  desire  better  evidences  of  her  being 
owned  and  blessed  of  God?" 

To  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Newton,  I  subjoin  the  testimony 
of  a  Conffrecrational  minister  himself. 

''  Look  over  New  England  ;  you  will  every  where  see 
some  religious  societies  in  a  broken  condition.  Every  vil- 
lage, every  hamlet,  is  the  house  of  discord.  Sanctuaries 
are   prostrate,   religion   wounded,   pastors   dismissed ;    and 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  103 

where  these  evils  have  been  less  manifest,  the  secret  fire  is 
burning  to  break  out.  In  every  part  of  New  England,  you 
will  find  two,  three,  and  perhaps  ten  religious  societies, 
where  there  should  be  but  one  ;  and  these  little  starvelings 
are  breaking  into  still  new  divisions."* 

I  consider  this  a  faithful  representation  of  the  progress 
and  issues  of  that  society,  which  looks  up  to  Robinson  with 
as  sincere  filial  veneration,  as  Methodism  to  Wesley.  But 
I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt,  that  Robinson  espied  flaws 
in  it,  when  fresh  from  his  plastic  hand  ;  and  died  with  an 
inexpressibly  better  opinion  of  the  Church  of  England,  than 
he  held  in  the  rash  moment,  when  he  broke  her  bands  asun- 
der and  cast  away  her  cords  from  him.  Had  he  lived  till 
now,  and  beheld  his  favorite  Independency,  asserting  yearly 
a  wider  and  wider  freedom,  throwing  off"  all  primitive  re- 
straints and  checks,  till  it  has  made  for  itself  *'  another 
Gospel,"  he  would  have  shrunk  back  in  dismay. t  He  would 
have  returned  to  his  "  first  love"  and  exclaimed  with  a  meek 
and  lowly  heart,  ''  O  my  ancient  Mother,  take  a  weary  and 
heavy-laden  wanderer  to  thy  bosom.  Give  me  thy  yoke  and 
thy  burden,  that  I  may  find  rest  to  my  soul." 

*  Withington's  Review  of  the  late  Temperance  Movements,  2d  edit. 
Boston,  1840,  pp.  11,  12. 

t  Says  Dr.  Wisner,  of  the  Old  South  in  Boston,  and  speaking  of  his 
own  society,  "  Of  those  in  the  midst  of  whom  she  anciently  stood,  built 
upon  the  faith  which  made  our  fathers  such  holy  and  wonderful  men,  she 
alone  remains  on  that  foundation  firm  and  unmoved." — History  of  Old 
South,  p.  65. 

Robinson  would  not  have  stood  still,  with  a  faith  that  could  save  so 
little.  As  his  colleague  Smith  told  him,  he  would  have  plunged  forward  ; 
or,  what  was  infinitely  better,  returned  to  his  old  home  and  written  hack- 
wards  the  fond  boast  of  Mr.  Oakes  :  "  I  look  upon  the  discovery  and  set- 
tlement of  the  Congregational  way  as  the  boon,  the  gratuity,  the  largess 
of  Divine  bounty."  Magnalia,  ii.  64. — Compare  Baillie's  Dissuasive, 
Edit.  1645,  pp.  17,  18. 


104  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 


LETTER  VI. 

In  my  last  letter,  I  fully  intended  to  embrace  the  ex- 
cuses for  Puritan  peculiarities,  and  also  the  reasons  for  the 
erection  of  a  Puritan  economy  on  American  soil.  The  ex- 
cuses were  numerous,  and  required  much  space  for  an  an- 
swer; and  this  letter  must  accordingly  be  devoted  to  the 
reasons  which  are  alluded  to,  and  which  have  been  zealous- 
ly, if  not  judiciously  or  eloquently,  presented  by  a  Puritan  of 
ancient  fame,  Nathaniel  Morton,  Secretary  to  the  Colony 
established  at  Plymouth.* 

Well,  then,  as  pleasantly  as  may  be,  let  us  give  the  ex- 
cuses which  have  been  argued  our  parting  obeisance,  and 
commence  a  review  of  an  "  Apologeticall  Narration,"  quite 
as  famous  as  that  once  levelled  against  the  Presbyterians 
by  the  ingenuity  of  Puritans ;  and  which  Mr.  Hetherington 
says,  in  proof  of  their  mutual  love,  "  operated  instantane- 
ously like  a  declaration  of  war. "f  In  imagination  let  us  go 
down  to  the  seaside,  step  on  board  the  Mayflower,  freighted 
with  the  immortalized  '*  adventurers"  in  quest  of  religious 
freedom,  and  with  a  slight  violation  of  the  unities,  and  a 
gentle  anachronism,  seat  ourselves  by  old  Morton's  side, 
and  glance  over  his  redoubtable '' New  England's  Memo- 
rial."    Be  it  noted  here,  by  the  way,  that  no  inferior  neces- 

*  Morton's  Memorial  was  published  in  1669.  It  has  gone  through 
five  editions.     The  last  dates  1826  !     I  quote  Judge  Davis's  edition. 

t  Hetherington,  p.  163.  Compare  Baillie's  Dissuasive,  p.  92.  Life 
of  0.  Heywood,  p.  60. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  105 

sity  must  have  been  felt  to  constrain  him  to  undertake  such 
an  essay.  The  case  was  one  which  needed  defending,  and 
that  of  the  most  earnest  character.  It  had  not  spoken  well 
for  itself;  and  so  it  required  to  have  words  and  a  tongue  of 
the  right  sort  put  into  its  mouth.  It  was  high  time  that 
the  tongue  of  stammerers  should  be  instructed  to  speak 
plainly.  So  the  pen  of  a  ready,  at  least  the  readiest  w^riter 
that  could  be  found,  was  pressed  into  the  service.  This  is 
worth  remembering :  let  us  now  pass  on. 

We  peep  over  Morton's  shoulder  to  read  his  version  of 
the  upstirring  reasons,  as  received  from  themselves,  he  says, 
(p.  19,)  why  his  fathers  are  about  to  launch  upon  the  *'  vasty 
deep."  Let  no  one  rudely  suspect  me  of  a  disposition  to 
enact  the  part  of  that  naughty  counsellor,  who  as  old  Flavel 
says,  is  always  busy  at  a  minister's  elbow.  Forbid  it  cour- 
tesy !  No,  I  have  probably  a  fuller  trust  in  Morton's  sin- 
cerity, than  he  had  in  Archbishop  Laud's,  or  in  that  of  any 
one  who  bore  the  Babylonish  name  of  Prelate.  I  would  not, 
if  I  could,  mutilate  his  work,  as  Prynne  did  the  diary  of  the 
victimized  metropolitan.  Verily,  the  ancient  Secretary  shall 
stand  alone  ;  and  I  will  only  venture  to  put  some  little  com- 
mentary in  close,  if  not  the  most  winning  contact  with  his 
circuitous  apology.  He  gives  no  less  than  Jive  reasons,  ar- 
rayed with  no  mean  tactics,  why  his  Puritan  kindred  should 
abandon  Leyden  in  Holland,  after  a  ten  or  eleven  years'  so- 
journ there.  He  would  give  us  comfortable  assurance,  why 
they  should  employ  "  sundry  agents,  to  treat  with  several 
merchants  in  England,  who  adventured  some  considerable 
SUMS  in  a  way  of  valuation,  to  such  as  weni  personally*  on 
the  voyage,"  (p.  22,)  though  he  forgets  to  tell  us  why  these 
merchants  thought  it  so  necessary  to  insist  upon  that  awk- 
ward word,  when  they  were  all  so  passionately  solicitous  to 
get  away.    He  goes  on  to  enlighten  us  about  their  efforts  to 

*  Plymouth  Colony  Laws,  p.  303,  edit.  1836. 


106  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

obtain  "  letters  patent,  for  the  northern  parts  of  Virginia,  of 
King  James  of  famous  memory  :"  famous,  /,  e.,  for  perse- 
cuting, except  in  those  moments  of  clemency,  when  he 
granted  patents  and  charters  to  those  who  said,  **  the  Church 
of  Rome  was  once  a  true  Church,  but  so  was  the  Church  of 
England  never!''  He  further  and  finally  instructs  us,  that 
not  altogether  devoid,  as  yet,  of  that  vile  commodity  called 
''filthy  lucre,"  they  did  **  buy  and  fit  out"  a  certain  ship 
called  Speedwell ;  whose  name  is  somewhat  ominous  of  the 
fact,  that  her  sailing  propensities  were  not  entirely  disre- 
garded. And  that  said  courier  of  the  ocean  was  not  to  be 
lightly  parted  with,  he  permits  us  to  know  from  the  fact,  that 
she  was  to  "  stay  in  the  country,  and  attend  upon  fishing 
and  such  other  affairs  as  might  be  for  the  good  and  benefit 
of  the  colony,  when  they  came  thither."  He  does  not  say 
what  these  "other  affairs"  were;  but  we  must  charitably 
hope  that  they  were  not  speculations  in  such  an  unspiritual 
thing  as  trade,  or  expeditions  not  too  neighborly  within  the 
precincts  of  the  Dutch ;  who  had  been  such  long  and  fast 
friends  to  them  in  their  native  land.  It  would  have  been 
cruel,  indeed,  to  let  the  Speedwell  run  away  with  fish  or 
furs  to  which  the  Dutch  preferred  a  claim. ^^  I  do  not  say 
she  did ;  but  proceed  to  give  the  Jive  reasons  in  due  form 
and  category. 

I. — First,  then,  saith  Nathaniel  the  scribe,  (a  Puritan 
indeed,  in  whom  was  no  Churchmanship  at  all,)  his  fathers 
attempted  to  establish  their  own  economy  on  these  occiden- 
tal shores,  *'  Because  themselves  were  of  a  different  lan- 
guage from  the  Dutch,  where  they  lived,  and  were  settled 
in  their  way ;  insomuch  that  in  ten  years'  time,  whilst  their 
Church  sojourned  among  them,  they  could  not  bring  them 
to  reform  the  neglect  of  observation  of  the  Lord's  day,  as  a 
Sabbath,  or  any  other  thing  amiss  among  them."  (p.  19.) 

^  See  Note  69. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  107 

Now,  really,  without  weighing  this  according  to  the  se- 
vere rules  of  that  system  which  bids  us  do  as  we  would  be 
done  unto,  was  it  exactly  according  to  the  laws  of  Chester- 
field, that  the  first  thing  they  should  attempt,  with  their  kind 
Dutch  entertainers,  must  be  to  tell  them  of  their  faults  ? 
The  excuse  is,  to  be  sure,  that  the  Puritans  were  ''  settled 
in  their  way :"  i.  e.,  if  I  read  the  Secretary  with  exegetical 
propriety,  and  refer  these  words  to  them  rather  than  their 
hosts.  But  be  it  even  so.  The  Dutch,  I  ween,  were  *'  set- 
tled in  their  way,"  quite  as  composedly,  and  not  a  little 
longer;  for  the  Puritans  were  but  of  yesterday,  and  their 
leader  Robinson,  had  as  "  amiable  and  comfortable  carry- 
ing on,"  in  changes  of  opinion,  as  most  people  who  do  not 
wear  a  beard  and  breeches.  Whose  "  settled  way,"  then, 
should,  in  the  exercise  of  that  charity  which  hopeth,  be- 
lieveth,  and  endureth  all  things,  have  had  foremost  consid- 
eration? Add  to  this,  too,  there  were  beside  some  slight 
obligations  to  be  taken  into  the  account ;  not  dissimilar  to 
those  suggested  to  Robinson's  susceptible  memory,  by  good 
Bishop  Hall  of  Norwich.*  The  Puritans  were,  in  their  own 
view,  refugees  for  conscience'  sake,  and  escaping  for  dear 
life.  The  Dutch  opened  their  arms  widely,  and  gave  them 
protection,  peace,  and  liberty.  "  They  did,"  it  is  the  Sec- 
retary's absolute  confession,  "  quietly  and  sweetly  enjoy 
their  church-liberties  under  the  States." 

And  must  they,  then,  after  worrying  others  who  tol- 
erated their  rebukes  with  scantier  ceremony,  begin  the  same 
process  with  those  who  would  indulge  them  in  any  or  all 
their  notions,  (provided  they  did  not  inflict  them  upon  them- 
selves,) with  **  quiet  and  sweet  enjoyment?"  Must  they 
besiege  them  as  long  and  as  vigorously  as  the  Greeks  did 
Troy,  (two  tedious  lustrums,)  to  have  them  "  settled  in 
their  way  ;"  or  must  they  account  them  so  seriously  unset- 

*  Works,  X.  113.     Oxford,  1837. 


108  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

tied,  as  to  be  unworthy  their  companionship?  To  be  sure, 
the  phrase  "any  other  thing  amiss  among  them"  is  broad 
enough  to  embrace  errors,  heresies,  and  schisms,  of  the 
hugest  magnitude.  But  as  the  "observation  of  the  Lord's 
day  as  a  Sabbath  "  was  the  head  and  front  of  their  offend- 
ing, I  must  consider  this  as  the  most  flagitious  defalcation 
with  which  the  Dutch  were  chargeable.  And  mark,  too, 
the  phraseology.  It  is  not  that  the  Dutch  neglected  the 
Lord's  day.  By  no  means.  They  neglected  to  observe  it 
as  a  Sabbath.  And  what  did  that  phrase  mean  in  a  Puritan 
vocabulary  ?  Much  more  than  it  does  in  ours.  It  meant  a 
Sabbath  as  strict  as  was  ever  kept  by  the  exactest  Pharisee. 
"  Myself  have  heard  it  preached,"  says  Bishop  Montague, 
"that  it  is  not  lawful  for  us  to  dress  any  meat  upon  the 
Sabbath  as  they  style  it,  or  the  Lord's  day,  but  they  that  do 
so  break  the  Sabbath."*  And,  to  crown  the  climax.  Sab- 
bath-breaking was  placed  upon  a  level  with  actual  murder. f 
But  the  continental  Protestant  notion  of  the  Lord's  day 
was  not  so  stern.  Calvin  allowed  the  old  men  to  play  at 
bowls,  and  the  young  men  to  train  at  Geneva,  after  Sunday 
evening  service. t  And  much  the  same  notion  of  the  Lord's 
day  prevails,  to  this  time,  over  all  Protestant  Europe.^ 
And  the  Dutch,  doubtless,  were  as  liberal,  and  not  one  whit 
more  so,  than  Calvin  and  every  other  Protestant,  (a  Puri- 
tanical one  excepted,)""  then  was  or  has  ever  since  been, 
respecting  the  religious  observance  of  the  day  of  our  Sav- 

'"  See  Note  70. 

*  Acts  and  ^Monuments,  p.  480.  Jephson  on  the  Sabbath,  pp.  398, 
400. 

t  Grant's  English  Church,  i.  455. — Down  to  1769,  the  dead  could  not 
be  buried  in  Massachusetts  on  a  Sunday,  without  license  from  a  magis- 
trate.— Felt's  Ipswich,  p.  199. 

t  Laud's  Troubles,  p.  343.  Dissenter  Disanned,  p.  28,  Pt.  ii.  edit. 
1681. 

§  Eylert's  Frederick  William  III.  pref.  p.  xi. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  109 

iour's  resurrection.*  Yet  this  the  Puritans  could  not  en- 
dure. It  was  not  enough  for  them,  that  Popish  Christen- 
dom should  be  corrected  by  their  pattern,  all  Protestant 
Christendom  must  undergo  the  same  transformation ;  or  the 
inevitable  conclusion  was,  (sure  as  the  law  of  gravity,) 
"  They  know  not,  neither  will  they  understand ;  they  walk 
on  still  in  darkness ;  all  the  foundations  of  the  earth  are  out 
of  course."  (Ps.  Ixxxii.  5.)  And,  again,  "  If  the  founda- 
tions be  destroyed,  what  can  the  righteous  do?"  (Ps.  xi.  3.) 
What  but  renounce  a  nation  of  incorrigible  anti-sabbata- 
rians,  and  fly  from  them  to  "  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  sea?" 
Alas,  that  no  conclusion  but  such  as  this  could  be  a 
safe  one  ;  and,  too,  in  virtual  denunciation  of  all  Protestant 
Christendom,  but  their  own  microscopic  sect — a  cloud  like 
a  man's  hand  upon  the  wide  ecclesiastical  canopy !  Why, 
what  if  the  Dutch,  in  close  imitation  of  Calvin,  were  less 
strict  in  the  observance  of  a  Christian  Sabbath,  than  Phari- 
sees of  a  Jewish  one  ?  They  were  liberal  to  the  utmost  ex- 
tent of  the  wishes  of  such,  as  were  among  the  most  "  settled 
in  their  way"  earth  ever  saw,  in  granting  and  honoring  the 
rights  of  conscience.  Ought  not  such  an  all-powerful 
sweetener  as  this  to  have  softened  the  tongues  of  those 
who,  but  yesterday,  had  exalted  such  rights  to  the  very  ze- 
nith among  sacred  things  ?  They  had  forsaken  home,  and 
all  they  there  held  precious,  to  enjoy  these  rights  inviolably. 
And  this,  too,  when,  says  one  who  would  defend  them  by 
fire  or  water,  ''  A  little  bending  of  the  conscience,  a  little 
relinquishment  of  duty,  and  a  slight  outward  submission  to 
mitred   authority,  would  have  kept  them   in  possession  of 

*  It  may  be  questioned,  very  fairly,  whether  the  excitement  raised  by 
the  Puritans  against  the  usual  Protestant  notion  of  Sunday,  was  other 
than  political  in  its  aim.  When  they  got  into  power,  they  regarded  all 
days  alike  ;  very  much  as  the  Quakers  do  now.  Brady's  Clavis  Calen- 
daria,  vol.  1.  105.  E.  N.  Neale  on  Feasts  and  Fasts,  p.  191.  Neale 
refers  to  Brady,  but  is  in  error  about  the  page. 

6 


no  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

their  quiet  homes,  and  spared  them  the  sacrifices  and  perils 
of  a  removal  into  this  distant  and  desert  land."*  But 
less  bending,  less  relinquishment,  slighter  submission  still, 
was  required  in  Holland — none  at  all  in  fact,  if  they  would 
allow  their  gracious  hosts  their  own  rights  of  conscience, 
and  not  give  them  the  tug  of  a  ten  years'  controversy,  to 
''  bring  them  to  reform."  Yet  even  this  little,  this  less,  this 
least  of  all  concessions,  they,  for  courtesy's  sake,  for  honor's 
sake,  for  peace'  sake,  for  gratitude's  sake,  for  Christian 
charity's  godlike  sake,  could  not  grant.  No,  the  old  text 
must  be  new  vamped,  even  for  benefactors,  Ne  ungulam  esse 
rtlinquendam — not  a  hoof  must  be  left  behind.  England 
was  an  intolerable  abode,  because  England  would  not  think 
as  they  did  ;  and  Holland,  sheltering  and  shielding  Holland, 
where  conscience  was  free  as  the  winds  of  heaven,  if  she 
also  would  not  think  as  they  did,  was  scarce  an  atom  better, 
and  must  forthwith  be  cast  behind  the  back,  "  Ire  pedes 
qiiocumque  ferent,  quocumque  per  undas."  Can  we  be 
amazed,  if  such  a  temper  as  this  was  looked  upon  with 
some  trifling  degree  of  jealousy  ;  and  that  they  who  indulged 
it,  suffered  the  (to  them)  unendurable  penalty  of  being 
"watched?"! 

n. — The  second  reason  of  the  Secretary,  derived  from 
their  own  self-defending  lips,  is,  "  Because  their  own  coun- 
trymen, who  came  over  to  join  with  them,  by  reason  of  the 
hardness  of  the  country,  soon  spent  their  estates ;  and  were 
then  forced  to  return  back  to  England,  or  to  live  very 
meanly. "t 

*  Hawes's  Tribute,  2d  edition,  p.  100. 

t  European  Settlements,  ii.  138. 

t  "  A  mean  and  low  condition,"  according  to  their  own  definition,  is, 
when  they  are  able  "  to  furnish  other  places  with  corn,  beef,  pork,  masts, 
clapboard,  pipe-staves,  fish,  beaver,  otter, 'and  other  commodities." — See 
Hutchinson's  Hist.  i.  449.  And  I  am  the  more  suspicious  about  the 
mean  living  of  the  Puritans  in  Holland  ;  for  a  Presbyterian,  their  contem- 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  HI 

So,  then,  Holland  was  a  hard  country,  after  all.  We 
begin  to  think  that  some  of  that  high-blown  praise  about  its 
sweet  liberty,  is  going  to  burst  like  the  soap-bubble.  But 
let  us  look  a  little  nearer.  Was  it  a  hard  country  for  re- 
ligion's sake?  Not  at  all.  A  hard  country  for  what, 
then?  A  hard  country  for  making  money.  Estates  were 
more  apt  to  be  spent  there  than  to  be  accumulated  ;  and 
one  was  more  likely  to  live  meaner  than  he  was  wont,  than 
to  be  clothed  in  purple  and  fine  linen,  and  fare  sumptuously 
every  day. 

We  have  read  of  suiferers,  (Heb.  x.  34,)  who  took  joy- 
fully the  spoiling  of  their  earthly  goods,  when  their  souls 
were  free,  and  they  knew  in  themselves  they  had  in  heaven 
a  better,  and  an  enduring  substance.  But  Mr.  Secretary 
Morton  must  permit  us  to  doubt,  (I  fall  insensibly  into  the 
use  of  the  plural,  so  confident  am  I  multitudes  of  Church- 
men think  with  me,)  whether  he  has  given  us  a  clue  for  the 
discovery  of  many  such,  in  the  congregation  of  the  Puritans 
at  Leyden.  No.  For  they  had  ''church-liberties"  to  the 
full ;  but  there  was  a  craving  for  something  beyond  them 
all.  Was  that  something  more  precious?  They  had  fled 
from  England,  as  from  Egypt  the  house  of  bondage.  They 
were  in  Holland,  where  none  troubled  them  for  a  solitary 
opinion.  And  yet,  when  they  saw  their  estates  waning,  and 
mean  livinsf  hoverinsf  ni^h,  the  lanoruaore  of  their  secret 
souls  was,  "  England,  with  all  thy  faults,  I  love  thee  still  ; 
for  there  my  estate  will  not  take  wings  so  fast,  and  mean 
living  will  not  persecute  me,  if  bishops  do."  And  so,  some 
went  back.  Yes,  the  Secretary  himself  admits  it.  Eng- 
land was  made  a  home  a  second  time,  if  money  could  be 
saved,  and  the  pangs  of  mean  living  could  be  avoided,  i.  e. 
of  living  meaner  than   one's  neighbors ;   for  meaner  living 

porary,  says  that  many  of  them  there  "  lived  in  safety,  pomfe,  and  ease, 
enjoying  their  own  wayes  and  freedDme."  Edwards's  Antapologia,  p.  2. 


112  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

than  ever  awaited  them  on  the  inhospitable  shores  of  Massa- 
chusetts. In  other  words,  to  bring  the  matter  to  a  point  in 
a  single  sentence,  Persecution  was  a  tolerable  evil ;  but  the 
loss  of  property  and  outward  station  in  society  was  not. 

I  do,  (bitterly  prejudiced  as  many  will  account  me,)  I  do 
look  upon  this  conclusion  with  the  sincerest  pity.  But  I 
am  not  to  be  blamed,  for  making  the  case  of  the  Secretary 
worse  than  he  himself  has  made  it.  I  could  wish  his  words 
unsaid,  and  his  argument  drowned  in  the  depths  of  the  sea 
his  brethren  were  tossed  upon.  But  there  both  stand,  there 
both  will  stand,  as  long  as  the  English  language  is  read  or 
written.  And  so  long  will  it  remain,  by  confession  of  judg- 
ment, that  there  were  sorrows,  connected  with  their  pockets 
and  their  palates,  more  terrible  than  the  sorrows  of  a  ha- 
rassed conscience,  to  the  Puritans  at  Leyden.'^ 

Is  this  conclusion,  notwithstanding,  deemed  an  unfeeling 
one  ?  Look  at  it  in  parallel  with  the  case  of  the  hapless  Hu- 
guenots, and  judge.  The  Huguenots  left  France,  not  be- 
cause France  would  not  think  as  they  did,  but  because  they 
must  think  as  France  did,  at  the  peril  of  annihilation  to  their 
very  name.  It  was  not  with  them,  the  prayer-book  or  a 
shilling  fine;  but  it  was  the  mass  or  the  musket ;  confession 
to  the  priest,  or  a  vain  cry  for  mercy  to  the  sabreing  dragoon. 
Notwithstanding,  where  is  the  Huguenot's  book  of  lamen- 
tations, not  for  the' loss  of  his  estate,  his  table,  or  his  ward- 
robe, but  for  his  baptism  of  blood  and  fire  ?  Where  are  the 
annual  eulogists  of  his  almost  martyrdom,  the  merry  song 
in  derision  of  his  persecutors,  the  feast,  the  shout,  and  the 
clapping  of  hands?  And  echo  answers,  Where?* 

The  Puritan  could  voluntarily  forsake  his  native  land, 
and  an  adopted  land  of  sweet  church-liberty,  and  live  in  a 

7'  See  Note  71. 

*  Yet  th^ir  martyrs,  by  one  calculation,  are  945,000.  See  Quick's 
Synodicon,  i,  pp.  lix,  \x. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  113 

wilderness,  if,  according  to  the  language  of  the  first  gov- 
ernor of  Plymouth,  he  could  follow  his  trading  roundly.* 
He  could  abandon  his  new  home,  and  recross  the  ocean, 
when  a  cow  which  once  brought  twenty  pounds,  had  fallen  as 
low  as  six.t  But  the  Huguenot  was  content  with  any  loss,  but 
that  of  the  excellency  of  the  knowledge  of  Christ  Jesus  his 
Lord.  All  climes  were  bright  for  him,  where,  though  in  a  way 
which  his  foes  called  heresy,  he  could  worship  his  fathers' 
God.  He  could  subsist  in  Holland,!  or  in  England,  and 
thrive  there  too,  both  temporally  and  spiritually.  The  Pu- 
ritan could  subsist  only  where  his  own  word  and  will  were 
despotic  law.§  Oh,  I  honor  the  Huguenot  with  all  my  heart; 
and  if  I  take  from  the  Puritan  a  talent  of  the  praise  which 
he  clamorously  calls  for,  and  give  it  to  the  modest  Hugue- 
not, though  he  have  ten  already,  my  conscience  tells  me  I 
do  an  act  of  simple  duty,  which  justice  herself  requires. || 

HI. — The  third  reason  of  the  prim,  apologetic  Secretary, 
is  the  following :  '*  That  many  of  their  children,  through 
the  extreme  necessity  that  was  upon  them,  although  of  the 
best  dispositions,  and  graciously  inclined,  and  willing  to 
bear  part  of  their  parents'  burthens,  were  oftentimes  so  op- 
pressed with  their  heavy  labors,  that  although  their  spirits 
were  free  and  willing,  yet  their  bodies  bowed  under  the 
weight  of  the  same,  and  became  decrepit  in  early  youth, 
and  the  vigor  of  nature  consumed  in  the  very  bud.  And 
that  which  was  very  lamentable,  and  of  all  sorrows  most 
heavy  to  be  borne,  was,  that  many  by  these  occasions,  and 


*  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  series,  iii.  59.  Compare  Chalmers'  Annals, 
p.  416. 

t  Chalmers'  Annals,  pp.  165,  166. 

t  The  Huguenots  maintained  carefully  a  union  with  the  Dutch  Pro- 
testants.    Quick's  Synodicon,  i.  180. 

§  See  Zurich  Letters,  to  see  how  early  this  was  discovered,  Nos. 
94,  114,  115. 

II  Compare  Hawks's  Virginia,  p.  79. 


114  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

the  great  licentiousness  of  youth  in  that  country,  and  the 
manifest  temptations  of  the  place,  were  drawn  away  by  evil 
examples  into  extravagant  and  dangerous  courses,  getting 
the  rein  upon  their  necks,  and  departing  from  their  parents  : 
some  became  soldiers,  others  took  upon  them  far  voyages  by 
sea,  and  others  some  worse  courses,  tending  to  dissoluteness, 
and  the  destruction  of  their  souls,  to  the  great  grief  of  their 
parents,  and  the  dishonor  of  God ;  and  that  the  place  being 
of  great  licentiousness  and  liberty  to  children,  they  could 
not  educate  them,  nor  could  they  give  them  due  correction, 
without  reproof  or  reproach  from  their  neighbors." 

Well,  reader,  we  have  at  last  finished  a  reason,  which 
you  may  have  thought  a  copy  of  a  count  in  some  old  indict- 
ment. And  now,  but  that  the  land  to  which  it  alludes  has 
been  already  mentioned,  and  one  at  least  of  its  terrible  crimes 
enumerated,  I  should  be  amazingly  disposed  to  make  you 
guess,  whether  this  land  were,  or  were  not,  about  the  worst 
province  in  all  the  Pope's  dominions.  It  is  a  land  so  grind- 
ing in  its  toils,  that  children  become  decrepit  there  in  early 
youth,  and  the  vigor  of  nature  is  consumed  before  it  swells 
out  into  blossom.  It  is  a  land  of  such  terrible  licentious- 
ness, that  the  best  dispositions,  and  dispositions  additionally 
fortified  by  grace,  are  not  in  safety  there.  It  breeds  mani- 
fold temptations,  supplies  evil  examples  without  stint,  gives 
swinor  to  extravagant  and  danorerous  courses.     It  makes  chil- 

O  o  o 

dren  first  disobedient  to  their  parents,  and  then  deserters 
from  them.  It  makes  soldiers  and  sailors  of  many,  who 
would  otherwise  have  shone  in  lay-preaching  among  the 
"  Gifted  Brethren."*  It  makes  others  dissolute,  and  suicides 
of  their  souls.  It  discourages  education  and  domestic  disci- 
pline. 


*  "  It  was  also  a  part  of  the  system  [Independency]  to  allow  of  the 
preaching  of*  gifted  brethren.'" — Life  of  Oliver  Heywood,  p.  58.  Hey- 
wood,  by  the  vi^ay,  was  a  Presbyterian. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  II5 

But  where,  (you  would  say,  if  you  did  not  know  what 
land  was  meant,)  where,  out  of  the  domains  of  Popery,  or 
Prelacy,  can  a  land  so  deplorable  as  this  be  found  ?  Can 
this  be  a  land  on  which  a  Calvinist  has  ever  so  much  as 
shaken  off  the  dust  of  his  feet?  could  Calvinists  ever  hold 
a  conclave  within  its  polluted  borders?  Why,  Dr.  Hawes 
would  fain  persuade  us,  that  "  where  there  is  the  most  Cal- 
vinism there  is  the  least  crime."*  There  must  be  some  sad 
misnomer:  such  language  cannot  be  intended  for  any  land, 
where  Calvinism  has  so  much  as  floated  in  the  dreams  of 
theological  polemics.  But,  oh,  it  may  not  be.  This  Puri- 
tanical^ortraiture  is  drawn  for  a  land,  where  Calvinism  has 
arrayed  itself  in  all  its  glory. t  Dort,  a  name  never  to  be 
forgotten  in  its  annals,  belongs  to  a  city  whose  latitude  dif- 
fers from  that  of  Leyden,  only  by  twenty  minutes  !  And 
the  Synod  of  Dort  sat  in  1618  and  1619  :  but  the  year  before 
the  Puritans  abandoned  Holland,  as  too  incorrigibly  Sabbath- 
breaking,  licentious,  and  soul-destroying ;  as  containing  a 
people  so  stolid,  or  so  desperate,  that  a  ten  years'  incessant 
Puritan  tuition  "  could  not  bring  them  to  reform." 

In  England,  prelatic  England,  man,  the  most  precious  of 
all  creatures,  was,  if  a  Puritan,  more  vile  and  base  than  the 
earth  he  trod  upon — at  least  according  to  Puritanic  annal- 
ists.J  But  this  was  agreeable  to  "  the  course  of  nature."  And 
could  it  not  be  a  thousand-fold  better  for  him  to  tread 
the  soil  of  Holland — of  Calvinistic  Holland?  Ah!  there 
seemed  to  be  the  same  incongeniality  between  that  and  a  Pu- 
ritanic sole,  as  between  the  same  sole  and  a  ground  prolific 
of  Babylonish  prelacy.  And  the  ready  and  straight  con- 
clusion is,  that  there  was  no  ground  upon  which  a  Puritan 
could  tread  with  comfort,  of  which  he  could  not  claim  the 

*  Tribute,  2d  ed.  64. 

t  See  its  treatment  of  the  Arminians,  Grotius  and  Barnevelt.  Wat- 
kins's  Biog.  Diet.  p.  586. 

t  Graham's  North  America,  i.  241. 


116  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

ownership  and  the  supremacy — the  supremacy  for  body,  soul, 
and  spirit — the  supremacy  for  government  and  religion — the 
supremacy  for  his  own  polity  in  Church  and  State,  and  for 
that  alone.  Episcopacy  we  expect  him  to  repudiate.  For 
Presbytery,  and  Calvin's  Institutes,  and  the  land  of  Dort 
Synods,  we  do  look  for  some  grains  of  allowance  from  him. 
But  we  are  grievously  disappointed.  He  only  is  right,  and 
may  pour  forth  oracular  truth  and  law.  He  can  call  a  Dutch- 
man, if  a  Calvinist  and  a  protector,  a  Sabbath-breaker,  and 
guilty  of  untold  *'  things  amiss."  And  if  the  honest  Dutch- 
man in  turn  tell  him,  that  he  unduly  corrects  his  children, 
and  by  harshness  perhaps  will  drive  them  into  the  very  ex- 
tremes he  deprecates,  does  he  remember  there  is  such  a  text 
in  David  as  this  :  **  Let  the  righteous  smite  me,  it  shall  be 
a  kindness ;  and  let  him  reprove  me,  it  shall  be  an  excellent 
oil,  which  shall  not  break  my  head"  1  (Ps.  cxli.  5.)  Or  does 
he  rather  draw  himself  stiffly  up,  and  say,  "  Presumptuous 
dictator,  I  shall  forthwith  put  between  you  and  me  the  effec- 
tual separation  of  three  thousand  miles!" 

IV. — The  fourth  reason  of  the  advocating  Secretary  is, 
*'  That  their  posterity  would  in  a  few  generations  become 
Dutch,  and  so  lose  their  interest  in  the  English  nation  ;  they 
being  desirous  rather  to  enlarge  his  Majesty's  dominions, 
and  to  live  under  their  natural  prince."* 

Become  Dutch?  Well,  and  if  they  did,  could  it  be  such 
a  formidable  disaster,  when  the  Dutch  "  offered  them  great 
favor, "t  and  when  the  Synod  of  Dort  had  just  extinguished 
Arminianism,  and  made  Calvinism  of  the  first  water  preva- 
lent far  and  wide  ?  There  is  a  strange  want  of  unanimity 
between  such  apprehensions,  and  the  zeal  of  Dr.  Hawes  to 
prove  his  Puritanical  forefathers    Calvinists,  of  whom  the 

*  Gorges  professed  the  same  motives  for  Jiis  settlements,  as  the  Puri- 
tans for  theirs,  in  their  fourth  and  fifth  reasons — why  not  give  him  a 
much  credit  1     Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  series,  vi.  69,  70. 

t  Chalmers'  Annals,  p.  106. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  117 

world  was  not  worthy.*  To  dread  melting  away  into  the 
foremost  Calvinistic  community  on  the  globe,  and  then,  in 
the  next  breath,  to  glorify  Calvinism  as  the  sublimest  form 
of  Christianity,  may  be  consistent  with  Puritan  tactics;  but 
it  tallies  poorly  with  the  expectations  of  common  honesty 
and  common  sense. t 

But  there  is  a  makeweight  to  be  thrown  into  the  balance. 
O  yes,  I  was  overlooking  it.  By  being  amalgamated  with 
Calvinists,  they  would  "  lose  their  interest  in  the  English 
nation,"  and  some  fine  opportunities  to  enlarge  the  domain 
of  Episcopal  royalty.  And  so,  attachment  to  a  nation  they 
had  voluntarily  forsaken,  and  the  hope  of  enlarging  the  con- 
quests of  an  Episcopal  crown,  were  dearer  than  fellowship 
with  Calvinism  in  its  most  genuine  form. 

And  must  my  iron  fate  be  to  keep  a  perfectly  sober  coun- 
tenance, under  such  argumentation  as  this,  recorded,  as  it 
no  doubt  was,  with  most  edifying  sedateness,  and  especially 
when  I  see  it  endorsed  by  a  philosophical  champion  of  de- 
mocracy ?!  May  I  not  be  allowed  one  smile  ?  a  little  one  ? 
No !     Well,  then  let  me  try  another  strain. 

"  Desirous  rather  to  enlarge  his  Majesty's  dominions"  ? 


*  Tribute,  2cl  ed.  p.  113. 

t  With  equal  felicity  and  logic  Dr.  Hawes  says,  of  the  intolerant 
legislation  of  Massachusetts,  that  its  laws  "  were  designed  to  protect  and 
support  their  own  ecclesiastical  and  civil  order  ;  and  not  to  operate  at  all 
as  persecuting  or  oppressive  enactments,  against  Christians  belonging  to 
other  sects."  (Tribute,  p.  113.)  And  I  presume  a  Jesuit  would  prefer 
the  same  excuse,  in  behalf  of  the  Inquisition.  This  was  never  designed  to 
thwart  and  harass  Protestants.  O  no,  surely  not.  It  was  only  meant 
to  build  up  Romanism  ! 

Mr.  Chalmers  employs  Dr.  Hawes's  logic  admirably,  in  accounting 
for  the  establishment  of  Episcopacy  in  Virginia.  "  The  Church  of  Eng- 
land was  formally  established,  in  order  *  to  prevent  innovation  in  matters 
of  religion.'"  (Chalmers's  Revolt  Am.  Coll.  i.  37.)  Dr.  H.  must  en- 
dorse Chalmers,  or  repudiate  himself. 

X  Bancroft,  i.  303,  304. 

6* 


US  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

Why,  they  loved  hinras  curiously  as  the  Scotch  presbytery, 
who  would  not  use  the  ceremony  of  unction  at  his  corona- 
tion, till  they  learned  that  a  bishop  would  do  it  without  ihem  ; 
and  then,  to  be  beforehand  with  a  Babylonish  prelate,  they 
found  a  conscience  for  doing  it  full  quickly.*  They  would 
help  him,  if  thereby  they  might  unhelp  Churchmen;  and 
here  we  must  not  forget  their  willingness  to  obtain  a  footing 
in  *'  the  northern  parts  of  Virginia,"  where  they  would  be 
at  least  in  the  neighborhood  of  Churchmen.  Could  they 
have  had  an  eye  on  the  birthright  of  those  Churchmen  in 
America?  Could  they  have  hoped,  in  any  way,  to  supplant 
them  ?  I  do  not  say  they  had  the  one,  or  did  the  other  ;  but 
when  I  find  that  a  Dominican,  like  Father  Hennepin,  was 
quite  ready  to  be  a  missionary  for  the  Protestant  William 
III.,  so  he  might  do  disservice  to  the  Jesuits,  (a  fact  which 
is  soon  evident  upon  a  careful  perusal  of  Hennepin's  work 
upon  America,)  is  it  morally  impossible  that  a  Puritan  would 
be  a  missionary  for  the  Episcopal  James  I.,  if  he  might 
thereby  thwart  the  plans,  or,  at  the  very  least,  enter  into  the 
labors  of  pioneering  prelatists  ?  When  did  a  Puritan  ever 
flatter  royalty  from  the  love  of  it?  His  freer  language  the 
rather  savored  of  the  classics  of  Billingsgate  :  witness  the 
achievements  of  Penry,  Throgmorton,  Endall,  and  Fenner.t 
Still  he  could  command  another  tone  and  other  words,  when 
his  worldly  interest,  the  hope  of  fish  and  furs,  and  trading 
roundly,  prompted  to  more  soothing  exhibitions.  Then,  his 
stiff,  rectangular  tongue  could  be  as  pliant  as  an  osier  in  the 
breeze,  or  pour  words  as  gentle  as  "  the  waters  of  Shiloah 
that  go  softly."     Isa.  viii.  6. 

King  James  experienced  this  in  his  day.  King  Charles 
H.  was  saluted  by  the  same  discovery,  before  the  century  had 
dropped  its  curtain.     The  Charter,  that  priceless  Charter, 

*  Spottiswood,  p.  381.  edit.  1655. 

t  Grant's  Eng.  Ch.  i.  446.  Compare  Maskell's  Martin  Mar-Prelate, 
p.  213. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  119 

which  Massachusetts  regarded  as  "  heart's  blood,"*  was  in 
fearful  peril.  It  had  unquestionably  been  transcended  in 
many  particulars.  To  mention  one  for  a  multitude  :  no  pro- 
vision existed  in  the  Charter  for  such  a  legislative  body  as  a 
House^f  Representatives,  or  any  legislative  body  separate 
from  the  Governor  and  his  assistants. t  So  that  terrible  writ 
of  quo  icarranto,  or,  ''  By  what  authority  doest  thou  these 
things,"  was  a  daily  apprehension.  Agents  were  sent  to 
England,  to  keep  aloof  the  dreaded  spectre.  "  And,"  says 
Chalmers,  (p.  4J2,)  "  according  to  the  never-failing  practice, 
a  fast-day  was  appointed  to  pray  for  the  preservation  of  the 
patent,  for  success  to  their  agency. "|  Thus  carefully  forti- 
fied, what  did  the  members  of  this  commission  do?  Duly 
impressed  with  the  weightiness  of  their  charge,  they  proved 
themselves  Chrysostoms  in  very  deed.  They  took  the  advice 
of  an  intelligent  friend,  and  tendered  the  Lord  Chancellor 
*'  an  acknowledgment  of  two  thousand  guineas  for  his 
Majesty's  private  use;"§ 

"  Aurum  potabile  being 
The  only  medicine  for  the  civil  magistrate, 
T'  incline  him  to  a  feeling  of  the  cause." 

But  this  is  slander.  Chalmers  knew  too  well,  that  what  he 
duly  calls  "  this  delicate  transaction,"  would  be  severely  ques- 
tioned ;  and  on  pp.  461,462,  he  takes  abundant  care  to  give 
original  authorities  which  well  corroborate  it.  And  he  adds, 
what  I  must  add,  in  strict  justice  to  others,  if  in  derogation 
of  the  foremost  State  of  all  our  realm,  "  There  is  no  evidence 
in  history,  or  records,  or  papers,  to  show  that  any  of  the 

*  Chalmers,  p.  461. 

t  Trumbull's  History  of  the  United  States,  p.  96. 

\  Puritan  fasting  and  praying  was  one  way  of  killing  bishops. — Mag- 
nalia,  i.  280.  Gauden  well  said,  they  could  have  feasts  and  fasts  enough 
for  their  own  ends.     Tears  and  Sighs,  &c.  p.  112,  edit.  1659. 

§  Chalmers,  p.  413.  Compare  the  agency  of  Hugh  Peters  &  Co., 
given  on  page  172  of  Chalmers. 


120  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

other  colonies  employed  similar  means  to  gain  their  ends  in 
England." "2  * 

Let  those  dispute  Chalmers'  authority,  who  have  had  as 
free  access  as  he  had  to  documentary  testimony  in  the  Plan- 
tation Office  of  England.  And  let  it  likewise  be  #emem- 
bered,  that  in  his  opinions  of  the  conduct  of  the  Puritans, 
he  is  sustained  by  the  Presbyterian  Dr.  Robertson  ;  to  say 
nothing  of  thousands  of  Presbyterians,  in  the  days  of  the 
Westminster  Assembly,  and  the  Protectorate  of  Cromwell. 
Mr.  Graham,  indeed, t  looks  at  both  Chalmers  and  Robert- 
son with  a  jealous  eye.  Yet  he  freely  acknowledges,  that  it 
is  impossible  to  tax  them  with  ignorance,  that  it  would  be 
presumptuous  to  charge  them  with  want  of  discernment, 
and  uncharitable  to  reproach  them  for  malignity.  And  this 
probably  is  quite  enough,  by  way  of  canvass,  for  the  fourth 
reason.  Let  us  now  hear  the  venerable  Secretary's  fifth  and 
last. 

V. — It  is  as  follows  :  "  Fifthly  and  lastly,  and  which  was 
not  the  least,  a  great  hope  and  inward  zeal  they  had,  of  lay- 
ing some  good  foundation,  or  at  least  to  make  some  way  there- 
unto, for  the  propagating  and  advancement  of  the  Gospel  of 
the  kingdom  of  Christ,  in  those  remote  parts  of  the  world  ; 
yea,  although  they  should  be  but  as  stepping-stones  unto 
others,  for  the  performance  of  a  great  work." 

Here  we  have  something,  which  bears  reason  and  cha- 
rity and  amiable  humility  on  its  front.  If  true  to  the  letter, 
and  there  were  no  unfortunate  sixth  and  seventh  reasons, 
which  historical  justice  requires  me  to  specify,  the  offences 
of  the  first  four  might  be  blotted  out  by  a  tear  of  pity.  But 
alas  !  with  these  bowing-down  pilgrims,  willing  to  be  but 
stepping-stones  for  their  betters,  what  was  "  the  Gospel  of 
Christ,"  and  what  a  lawful  "  way"  for  its  "  propagation  and 

'-  See  Note  72. 

*  Chalmers,  p.  462.  +  North  America,  i.  260.     London,  1827. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  121 

advancement  ?"     The  Gospel  resided  with  their  little  flock 
alone.*     The  way  to  spread  it  was  one,  of  which  their  pri- 
vate judgment  was  the  only  competent  inventor. t     As  St. 
Augustine  said  of  the   Donatists,   "  nisi   quod  ipsi  faciunt, 
nihil  rectum  existiment ;"    so  they  would  esteem  nothing 
right,  but  what  was  done  by  their  own  selves.     The  Calvin- 
ists  of  Holland,  as  we  have  seen  already,  experienced  scanty 
consideration  from  them.     The  Presbyterians  of  England 
were    not   treated  with   more   favor.     Those   very   Presby- 
terians charged  them  with  dislike  of  themselves,  and  obsti- 
nate separation.    *'  You  rend  yourselves  from  us,"  was  their 
remonstrance,  "  and  not  as  from  churches  of  the  same  rule, 
but  as  churches  differing  in  the  rule,  with  a  dislike  of  us, 
and  a  protestation  that  you  cannot  join  with  us,   as  fixed 
members,  without  sin.     You  hear  us  preach,  not  as  persons 
in  office,  but  as  gifted  men  only ;    and  some  of  you  refuse 
to  hear  us  preach  at  all.     You  renounce   all  church  com- 
munion with  us  as  members,  and  not  only  so,  but  you  invite 
our  people  from  us  by  telling  them,  [the  italics  are  Presby- 
terian and  not  mine,]   that  they  cannot  continue  with  us 
without   sin.^^X      This   may  seem   strange   language    from 
Presbyterian  pens,  yet  it  comes  from  the  Ministers  and  El- 
ders met  together  in  a  Provincial  Assembly.     Nor  is  it  by 
any  means  as  strong  a  representation  of  the  temper  of  Puri- 
tanism, as  they  give  further  on,  when  the  momentum  of  ar- 
gument had  supplied  them   with   more   force.     Then  they 
bear  down  upon  it  with  an  intensity,  which  in  me  would  be 
unpayionable  and  shocking.     ''  In  a  word,"  they  say,  p.  147, 

*  Maskell's  Martin  Mar  Prelate,  pp.  155,  219,  220. 

t  Gauden's  Tears  and  Sighs,  &c.  p.  139. 

$  Vindication  of  the  Presbyteriall  Government,  &c.  pp.  130,  131. 
London.  Licensed,  &c.  1650. — The  word  "  licensed"  should  be  noted; 
for  in  Puritan  days  the  liberty  of  the  press  was  abridged.  It  was  one  of 
their  requests  at  the  Hampton  Court  conference  that  it  should  be. — Ful- 
ler's Ch.  Hist.  iii.  183. 


122  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

"  First,  you  run  axe  ay  from  us,  [again  Presbyterian  italics,] 
and  tlien  for  the  most  part  turn  Independents,  then  Antino- 
mians,  then  Anabaptists,  then  Arniinians,  then  some  of  you 
Socinians,  Anti-Scripturists,  Anti-Trinitarians,  still  waxing 
worse,  deceiving  and  being  deceived,  and  in  the  conclusion 
mere  Atheists."  How  would  this  Presbyterian  history  of 
Puritanism  in  England,  some  two  hundred  years  ago,  con- 
trast with  its  history  in  Massachusetts,  as  developed  by  facts 
familiar  to  living  thousands  1 

The  ever  calumniated  Laud  could  say,  under  "  the  bur- 
den of  sixty-five  years  complete,"  the  time  "  draws  on 
apace,"  "  that  I  must  go  and  give  God  and  Christ  an  ac- 
count of  the  talent  committed  to  my  charge ;  in  which  God 
for  Christ  Jesus'  sake  be  merciful  to  me ;  who  knows  that 
however  in  many  weaknesses,  yet  I  have  with  a  faithful  and 
single  heart,  (bound  to  his  free  grace  for  it,)  labored  the 
meeting,  the  blessed  meeting,  of  truth  and  peace  in  his 
Church,  and  which  God  in  his  own  good  time  will  (I  hope) 
effect.  To  him  be  all  honor  and  praise  for  ever.  Amen."* 
And  thus  he  could  close  one  of  the  most  important  and 
earnest  efforts,  which  Protestantism  ever  made  against  Po- 
pery.t  Nevertheless,  say  the  Puritans,  he  was  a  Papist  at 
heart.  He  shed  his  last  drop  of  blood  as  a  member  of  the 
Protestant  Church  of  England  ;  for  he  professed  himself  her 
steadfast  son  with  his  latest  breath.  But  he  died,  said  the 
Puritans,  with  a  lie  in  his  right  hand  :  they  declared  his 
ruddy  face  a  painted  one,  till  the  pale  features,  quivering  in 
death,  stopped  their  malignant  vituperation. f 

Yet,  for  argument's  sake,  let  us  grant  them  faith  for  all 
they  want  to  allege  against  the  murdered  prelate,  and  his 
still    assassinated   memory.     If  we   are  to  take   their   ipse 

*  Conference  with  Fisher  ;  at  the  end. 

t  See  Leslie's  Works,  new  edition,  i.  498.  Or,  sermon  on  marriages, 
sec.  xix.     For  other  references  to  Laud,  see  Note  55. 
I  Southey's  Book  of  the  Church,  chap.  xvii. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  J 23 

dixits  against  Churchmen,  all  I  would  ask  in  turn  is,  not 
that  we  may  take  the  ipse  dixits  of  Churchmen,  but  of 
Presbyterians,  aye  of  genuine  Presbyterians,  against  them- 
selves. Would  this  be  too  bold  a  proposition,  though  it  do 
come  from  '*  Babylon  ?"  If  not,  I  hold  it  easy  to  picture 
them  in  as  bad  a  plight,  as  they  have  ever  pictured  Laud, 
with  nothing  to  aid  me  but  a  Presbyterian  pencil.  The 
quotations  I  have  just  given  may  be  taken  as  a  specimen. 
Thomas  Edwards,  Robert  Baillie,  and  above  all  Clement 
Walker,  who  wrote  a  history  of  Independency  [Congrega- 
tionalism] and  died  in  a  dungeon  for  it,  will  supply  me  with 
a  thousand  more,  if  necessary.  It  is  a  grand,  a  prodigious 
mistake,  to  suppose  that  Puritanism  ever  loved  the  Presby- 
tery better  than  Prelacy.  Presbyterianism,  Episcopacy, 
Anabaptism,  Quakerism,  presented  equal  unloveliness  to  its 
"  evil  eye."  Its  Ishmaelite  hand  was  against  them  all.  Still 
it  would  fain  persuade  us,  it  could  willingly  become  a 
"  stepping-stone"  for  any  body,  who  would  give  free  course 
to  a  disenthralling  Gospel  !  Oh,  who  is  it,  that  while  he 
calleth  himself  "  a  servant  of  servants,"  is  yet,  like  Levia- 
than, ''  a  king  over  all  the  children  of  pride  ?"*  And  is 
such  language,  measured  by  the  practice  which  went  with 
it,  to  be  taken  as  the  utterance  of  a  meek  and  lowly  heart, 
or  as  an  echo  from  the  banks  of  the  yellow  Tiber  ? 

VI. — The  entire  number  of  apolegetic  reasons  given  by 
the  anxious  Secretary  is  but  five.  I  have  hinted  that  it 
might  be  necessary  for  me  to  add  some  to  his  list.  Accord- 
ingly, I  must  announce,  among  those  omitted  by  him, 
That  the  Puritans  in  Holland  were  not  harmonious  among 
themselves,  and  that  therefore  it  became  desirable  for  them 
to  separate. 

This  is  a  formidable  reason,  asserted   by  no  lower  au- 

*  Gauden  says  of  some  of  their  speeches,  they  were  "  big  as  Behe- 
moth and  disdainful!  as  Leviathan." — Tears  and  Sighs,  &c.  p.  162, 


J04  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

thority  than  Hutchinson,  whom  all  parties  pronounce  accu- 
rate.* But  to  Puritan  eyes,  it  is  like  flint  to  steel,  it  en- 
dangers us  with  fire.  Belknap  cannot  endure  it,  and  strips 
the  Governor  of  Massachusetts  of  some  of  his  historic  laurels 
without  delay. t  Yet  Belknap  was  poorly  qualified  to  as- 
sume the  office  of  a  censor.  He  himself,  in  stating  the  five 
reasons  of  Secretary  Morton,  takes  special  care  to  smother 
up,  in  the  fourth,  all  reference  to  the  British  king;  and  if 
I,  therefore,  have  been  somewhat  incredulous  about  its 
loyalty,  I  hope  I  may  be  pardoned. j: 

However,  the  variance  of  Hutchinson  and  Belknap 
shows  me  that  my  position  must  be  fortified  ;  and  in  order 
to  display  some  of  the  anti-amiable  qualities  of  Puritan  as- 
sociations, it  becomes  necessary  for  me  to  summon  other 
witnesses.  Presbyterians  are  among  my  favorites,  and 
therefore  I  shall  commence  with  them. 

Says  Mr.  Edwards,  in  that  book  so  tastily  called  "  The 
Gangrene"' — "  The  Independent  church-way  is  a  way  of 
error,  confusion,  division,  a  way  that  God  never  shined 
upon  nor  blessed  spiritually,  with  the  blessing  of  edification, 
oneness  of  heart,  and  peace  in  their  churches ;  but  hath 
been  a  bitter  root  of  division,  contentions,  errors,  in  all 
places  of  the  world  wherever  such  churches  have  been  set 
up  ;  as  in  New  England,  Holland,  Island  of  Providence, 
the  Summer  Islands,  Old  England. "§  Says  Mr.  Hether- 
ington,  who  hits  not  quite  so  near  the  mark,  as  he  does  not 

*  Hutchinson's  Hist.  ii.  405. 

t  Biog.  ii.  165,  166. — Belknap,  however,  is  bv  no  means  so  bad 
as  Master  Cotton  in  his  reply  to  Baillie's  Dissuasive.  He  professes  to 
quote,  and  puts  quotation  marks  ;  but  he  leaves  out  one  of  the  five  rea- 
sons, and  cuts  and  carves  to  suit  himself  with  entire  freedom.  See  his 
Reply,  pp.  14,  15. 

X  Belknap's  Biog.  ii.  153. 

§  Gangraena,  Pt.  ii.  p.  170.  Compare  Baillie's  Dissuasive,  chap.  iv. 
— See  more  to  similar  effect  in  Edwards's  Antapologia,  p.  294,  and  the 
numerous  references  there  given. — See  also  Note  73. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  125 

actually  mention  Holland,  but  who  hits  near  enough  to  ena- 
ble us  to  follow  the  stream  up  to  the  fountain — "  In  New 
England,  where  their  system  had  at  first  freedom  to  put 
forth  its  native  tendencies,  it  was  found  to  be  absolutely  in- 
compatible with  the  peace  and  good  order  of  society  ;  and 
therefore  the  very  necessity  and  duty  of  self-preservation 
constrained  the  Independents  of  that  country  to  make  such 
alterations  in  their  system,  as  might  save  them  from  total 
disorganization."* 

And,  now,  having  cast  some  light  upon  the  subject  from 
Presbyterian  lamps,  let  us  even  go  to  their  very  own,  to  see 
if  something  more  than  a  glimmer  will  not  greet  us.  The 
following  sentence  is  from  a  letter  of  one  James  Shirley, 
who  was  an  agent  and  a  friend  in  London  for  the  colony  at 
Plymouth.  He  thus  speaks  to  its  Governor,  under  date  of 
March  8,  1629.  *'  Mr.  Bradford,  give  me  leave  to  put  you 
in  mind  of  one  thing.  Here  are  many  of  your  Leyden 
people,  now  come  over  ;  and  though  I  have  ever  had  good 
thoughts  of  them,  yet  believe  not  every  one  what  they  shall 
report  of  Mr.  Allerton  ;t  he  hath  been  a  trusty,  honest  friend 
to  you  all,  either  there  or  here.  And  if  any  do,  (as  I  know 
some  of  them  are  apt  to,)  speak  ill  of  him,  believe  them  not. 
Indeed,  they  have  been  very  unreasonably  chargeable,  yet 
grudge  and  are  not  contented.  Verily  their  indiscreet  car- 
riage, here,  hath  so  abated  my  affection  towards  them,  as 
were  Mrs.  Robinson  well  over,  [the  widow  of  the  minister 
who  died  in  1625,]  I  would  not  disburse  one  penny  for  the 
rest. "I     Dr.  Morse,  whom  none  will  accuse  of  any  lack  of 

*  Hist.  West.  Ass.  p.  196.  Also  Baillie's  Dissuasive,  chap,  iii.  And 
Jus  Div.  Min.  Evang.  pp.  152,  15.3. — Mr.  Graham  speaks  of  "the  vio- 
lent, divisive,  and  contentious  spirit,  that  long  continued  to  ferment"  in 
New  England. — North  America,  i.  266.  It  is  amusing  to  see  him  speak 
of  Cotton's  mildness  as  its  cure,  when  we  remember  the  "  Bloody  Te- 
net." 

t  Allerton  was  from  Plymouth :  another  agent  of  the  colony, 

t  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  series,  iii.  69. 


126  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

partiality,  for  any  thing  which  bore  the  name  of  Puritan,  is 
constrained  to  write  thus.  The  portrait  he  is  about  to  draw, 
prevents  him  from  using  that  venerated  word,  and  he  calls 
his  ancestors  simple  *'  emigrants."  And  then  he  avows  the 
melancholy  fact,  that  "  as  soon  as  they  were  removed  from 
ecclesiastical  courts,  and  possessed  of  a  patent  allowing 
liberty  of  conscience,  they  fell  into  disputes  and  contentions 
among  themselves."  He  goes  on,  a  little  lower  :  "  The 
unhappy  divisions  and  contentions  in  Massachusetts  still 
prevailed,  and  in  the  year  1636,  Gov.  Winthrop  strove  to 
exterminate  the  opinions  which  he  disapproved."  Once 
more  :  "  The  whole  colony  of  Massachusetts,  at  this  time, 
was  in  a  violent  ferment."* 

And  hut  once  more ;  for  I  must  quote  Richard  Baxter, 
an  authority  of  matchless  weight  with  Puritans,  to  put  this 
subject  effectually  beyond  further  controversy.  This  is  his 
castigation  of  the  Puritans  every  where,  though  with  an 
especial  reference  to  those  of  New  England  :  "  And,  truly, 
they  that  think  of  the  present  state  of  Hartford,  and  some 
other  churches  in  New  England,  (which  I  will  not  here 
make  a  narrative  of,)  methinks,  should  fear  separations, 
schisms,  or  divisions,  from  or  in  the  churches  called  Inde- 
pendent, as  much  as  those  of  a  different  discipline  do  as  to 
theirs  :  if  not  somewhat  more  on  several  accou7its."f 

Now,  in  view  of  such  testimony  as  this,  who  can  per- 
suade us,  without  oracular  authority,  that  the  usual  elements 
of  Puritanic  discord  did  not  exist  at  Leyden  ?  Secretary 
Morton,  and  Belknap  after  him,|  may  congratulate  them- 
selves that  they  had  no  such  felonious  quarrels,  as  required 
the  interference  of  the  magistrates.  But,  surely,  Morton 
himself  tells  us  of  disputations  with  the  Dutch  about  their 


*  Geog.  London  edit.  1792,  pp.  209,  210. 

t  The  Cure  of  Church  Divisions,  2d  edit.  p.  250. 

X  Biog.  ii.  158. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  J27 

Sabbath-breaking,  and  other  unmentioned  "  things  amiss,"* 
He  allows  that  their  neighbors  did  not  spare  "  reproofs  "  nor 
yet  "  reproaches,"  for  their  high-handed  government  of 
children.  And  Belknap  also  admits,  that  they  fled  from  a 
congregation  at  Amsterdam,  "  who  had  the  same  religious 
views,  and  had  emigrated  before  them/'t  because  that  con- 
gregation "  fell  into  controversy,"  and  Robinson  feared 
**  the  infection  might  spread."  Nay,  more,  he  admits  that 
Robinson  himself  afterwards  caught  this  "  infection ;"  for 
he  had  a  pamphlet  warfare  with  the  minister  of  his  quondam 
brethren. j: 

But  I  need  argue  this  case  no  further.  Robinson  him- 
self, as  already  seen,  was  unsteady  in  his  opinions ;  nor  did 
he  ever  expect  to  reach  terra  Jirma,  if  he  followed  their 
leadings,  instead  of  returning  to  the  "  old  paths  where  is  the 
good  way."  In  one  of  the  last,  or  the  very  last  of  sermons 
which  he  preached  to  the  ''  emigrants,"  is  this  remarkable 

*  The  word  "  amiss"  has  a  curious  connection  with  Robinson's  name. 
He  was  a  petulant  wit,  according  to  Belknap,  and  nicknamed  Dr.  Ames, 
who  rebuked  him  for  his  separation,  Dr.  Amiss.  But  Ames's  good  tem- 
per cooled  him  down. — Belknap's  Biog.  ii.  161.  This  little  circumstance 
shows  that  Robinson  found  it  best  to  curb  that  "  touchy  humor"  which 
he  forewarned  the  "  Pilgrims"  not  to  indulge.  And,  probably,  he  began 
to  treat  the  Dutch  with  a  courtesy  he  never  could  bestow  on  his  mother- 
church,  while  he  was  in  his  native  land.  But  Bishop  Hall  warned  him 
how  he  awoke  the  ire  of  the  Dutch  ;  for  slow  though  they  might  be,  their 
wrath  would  be  effectual,  if  once  roused.  "  Say  so,"  he  says,  alluding  to 
what  he  might  be  incautious  enough  to  say  in  Holland,  as  he  had  been 
in  England — "  Say  so  if  you  dare.  I  fear  they  would  soon  make  the 
ocean  your  Red  Sea,  and  Virginia  your  wilderness." — Hall's  Works,  x. 
102,  103.     Or,  sec.  52,  of  his  "  Apology  against  Brownists." 

t  Young's  Chron.  p.  34,  note. 

X  Biog.  ii.  157,  note.  Young's  Chron.  p.  451,  note.— Well  might 
Bishop  Hall  tell  Smith  and  Robinson,  when  they  were  wrangling,  "  Say 
if  you  can  that  the  Church  of  England  (if  she  were  not  yours)  is  not  a 
heaven  to  Amsterdam." — Hall's  Works,  x.  180,  181,  or  Epistles,  Dec- 
ade iii.  1. 


128  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

profession  :  "  I  am  very  confident  that  the  Lord  has  more 
truth  yet  to  break  forth  out  of  his  holy  word."  In  anticipa- 
tion, then,  he  was  an  advocate  of  the  modern  fashionable 
theory  of  development.  Like  Dr.  Priestly,  he  did  not  know 
how,  when,  or  where,  his  opinions  would  become  fixed.  And 
could  the  sentiments  and  feelings  of  a  people,  to  whom 
such  a  man  was  the  pastor,  be  permanent  or  harmonious  ? 
As  well  might  the  troubled  sea  no  more  cast  up  mire  and 
dirt,  or  submit  to  the  fetters  with  which  a  royal  fool  once 
tried  to  curb  its  waves. 

VIL — And  now  for  the  seventh  and  last  reason,  and  the 
close  of  this  letter.  It  reminds  me,  in  name  at  least,  of 
what  the  lawyers  call  the  "  negative  pregnant."  I  am  not 
lawyer  enough  to  compare  it  any  further ;  and  they  will  not 
therefore  accuse  me  of  an  error  of  trespass.  It  is  this. 
The  "  Pilgrims"  did  not  sail  for  New  England  because 
they  were  persecuted. 

Now,  the  old  and  unchangeable  story  is,  that  they  came 
to  Plymouth  because  they  were  persecuted  and  driven 
thither.  But  Morton's  own  Memorial  tells  us,  that  in  Hol- 
land they  did  sweetly  enjoy  their  church-liberties,  and  that 
the  Dutch  so  valued  them  for  fidelity  in  business,  that  they 
''  strove  for  their  custom."  Indeed,  he  says  expressly,  "  it 
was  their  own  free  choice  and  motion  "  which  induced  them 
to  depart.* 

With  what  sort  of  countenance,  then,  can  an  honest 
chronicler,  or  a  truthful  orator,  look  at  Plymouth  rock,  as 
the  first  American  foothold  for  harried  victims  of  persecu- 
tion ?  The  Plymouth  settlers  are  the  only  ones  who  can 
fairly  be  called  "  Pilgrims,"  as  Mr.  Young  has  already 
informed  us.     We  ask  these  Pilgrims  why  they  come,  and 

*  Memorial,  Davis's  edit.  p.  21. — Gorges,  whom  the  Pilgrims  called  a 
great  friend,  (Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  series,  iii.  63,)  has  another  version  of 
this  particular,  as  we  shall  by  and  by  see. — See  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  ser 
vi.  73. 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS.  129 

they  array  before  us  five  long  and  goodly  reasons,  where  the 
word  persecution  clinks  not  a  syllable  of  its  hated  sounds. 
Were  not  these  reasons  the  best  you  had  to  give  ?  Doubt- 
less. Did  you  not  think  them  ample  ?  Beyond  a  question. 
And  why,  then,  have  your  eulogists  transcended  your  own 
dictation?  why  have  they  dared  to  do  so?  why  have  they 
taken  upon  them  this  unprompted,  uncalled-for  task,  for 
more  than  two  hundred  years,  which  have  tired  at  least  six 
generations  of  mortal  men  into  the  long  sleep  of  death  ? 
Why  does  the  cry  rise,  louder  if  any  thing  than  ever,  from 
New  England  Societies,  orations,  songs,  and  dinner-tables, 
The  Pilgrims  landed  atPlymouth,  fugitives  escaping  for  actual 
life  from  persecution  ?  Does  not  history  cry,  "  Shame  upon 
such  misrepresentation !  by  the  solemn  testimony  of  facts, 
and  their  own  lips,  they  did  not"?  And  yet  this  cry  is  un- 
diminished, and  the  speech,  and  the  lyric,  and  the  feast  go 
their  annual  round.  Buf  if  a  solitary  Churchman  do  ven- 
ture a  single  whisper,  that  Laud  was  as  much  a  martyr  as 
the  Puritans  were  pilgrims,  such  a  storm  of  hisses,  sneers, 
and  execrations,  pelts  his  luckless  head,  as  might  make  him 
suspect  the  days  of  Martin  Mar-Prelate  were  come  back 
again.  His  only  refuge,  therefore,  (thank  Heaven  a  Puritan 
cannot  take  that  from  him,)  is  to  utter  himself  lo  One  who 
is  never  prejudiced,  "  My  soul  is  sore  vexed  :  but  thou,  O 
Lord,  how  long  ?" 

P.  S. — A  ninth  reason  might  have  been  added  from 
Chalmers'  Annals,  p.  85,  viz.,  "  They  became  unhappy  in 
their  situation,  because  they  foresaw  the  destruction  of  their 
society  in  the  toleration  they  enjoyed."  Something  like 
this  appears  to  be  Robertson's  account  of  the  matter,  in  the 
tenth  book  of  his  History  of  America.  See  also  Bozman's 
Maryland.  Note  O,  p.  376. 

What  is  not  a  little  remarkable,  the  Puritans  of  Massa- 
chusetts, (Mr.  Young  will  not  allow  them  the  honored  title 


130  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

of  Pilgrims,)  give  us  eight  rea.sons  for  MciV  removal ;  and 
among  the  eight,  the  being  driven  out  by  persecution,  is  not 
to  be  found  as  one.  See  them  written  by  Higginson  him- 
self.— Hutchinson's  Collection,  pp.  24,  27,  28.  If  any  one 
doubts  that  Higginson  wrote  them,  let  him  consult  Peek's 
Salem,  p.  10;  or  pp.  (>9,  70,  of  his  new  edition,  volume  first. 
So,  then,  as  *'  themselves  do  declare  it,"  (to  use  Master 
Cotton's  favorite  appeal,)  neither  the  Pilgrims  of  Plymouth, 
nor  the  quasi  Pilgrims  of  Massachusetts,  were  driven  to 
New  England  by  persecution. 


LETTER  yil 


In  the  last  letter,  my  readers  had  an  opportunity  to  see 
and  canvass  the  reasons  which  prompted  the  removal  of  the 
Puritans  from  Holland.  In  all  probability,  they  easily  under- 
stood how  the  Colonial  Secretary,  though  stiff  as  steel  in 
opposition  to  Prelacy,  could  practise  "  a  little  bending,"  to 
avoid  such  unamiable  reasons  as  the  sixth  and  seventh. 
The  Puritans  (let  us  admit  the  current  tale  for  the  object  in 
view,)  were  quarrelled  tvith  by  the  Government  of  England, 
and  sought  refuge  among  the  Dutch.  There  they  quarrel 
with  one  another  or  their  friends,  "  and  the  contention 
was  so  sharp  between  them,  that  they  departed  asunder, 
one  from  the  other."  Robinson  forsakes  Smith  and  his 
congregation  at  Amsterdam,  though  they  had  "  the  same  re- 
ligious views."  He  goes  to  Leyden,  where  he  and  his  preach 
a  ten  years'  homily  to  Calvinists,  on  breaches  of  the  Sab- 
bath, and  sundry  other  "things  amiss"  in  theology  and 
morals.     They  receive  "reproofs"    and   "reproaches"  in 


i 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  131 

their  turn.     The  prospect  becomes  wearisome,  the  neigh- 
borhood thorny,  and  they  determine  to  go  away. 

This  is  the  short,  plain  tale ;  and  what  does  it  say,  but 
that  they  found  it  so  difficult  to  agree  with  any  body,  that 
they  were  willing  to  risk  the  toils  and  perils  of  any  distance, 
so  they  might  not  be  contradicted  with  ease  or  safety? 
Wherein  does  it  make  their  ambition  to  differ  from  theirs, 
who  join  house  to  house,  and  lay  field  to  field,  till  there  be 
no  place,  that  they  may  be  placed  alone  in  the  midst  of  the 
earth?  (Isa.  v.  8.)  All  this,  too,  when  in  an  official  document 
to  the  commissioners  of  Charles  II.,  they  style  themselves 
"  voluntary  exiles  from  our  dear  native  country  ;"*  and 
when  the  pleading  Secretary  frames  ''painfull"  sentences  to 
prove  that  the  people  of  Holland  did  not  drive  them  out, 
but  they  went  of  their  own  free  choice  and  motion.  Now, 
let  us  grant  both  statements.  They  were  "  voluntary  exiles" 
from  England  :  they  left  Holland  of  "  their  own  free  choice 
and  motion."  Still,  can  it  be  an  astonishing  riddle  that 
England  should  help  them  to  such  volitions — nay,  should 
have  helped  them  therein  somewhat  impatiently  ;  when  they 
could  not  abide  those  who  entertained  "  the  same  religious 
views,"  nor  endure  the  company  of  Calvinists,  who  had  so  de- 
tested Arminianism  as  to  cut  off  the  head  of  one  of  its  great- 
est advocates,  and  banish  another  from  his  native  land  ? 
Was  it  an  enigma,  that  England  should  not  love  those  who 
could  not  love  even  their  favorite  Calvinism,  when  them 
selves  could  not  control  its  destinies,!  though  Calvinism  of 

*  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  series,  viii.  73. 

t  Master  John  Wilson's  dying  testimony  was,  that  contempt  of  Puri- 
tan authority  in  Church  and  State  might  be  the  ruin  of  the  country.  It 
was  in  his  view  the  crying  sin  of  the  times  ;  unless  their  "  luxury  and 
sloth"  were  its  equal. — Emerson's  First  Church,  p.  104. 

This  is  such  sorry  testimony,  that  Mr.  Emerson  would  fain  persuade 
us  the  Puritan  patriarch  was  in  his  dotage.  He  seems  to  forget  that  he 
had  just  said,  this  testimony  was  drawn  out  of  him  by  a  crowd  of  friends. 


132  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

such  genuine  virtue  as  to  sacrifice  men  like  Barnevelt  and 
Grotius  without  a  sigh  ?  * 

Pass  we  now  from  this,  to  the  next  advance  in  our  Pil- 
grims' Progress,  and  let  us  imagine  them,  after  leaving  Pre- 
latisis  and  Calvinists  alike  behind,  stepping  out  upon  that 
memorable  rock,  which  *'  as  a  beacon  upon  the  top  of  a 
mountain,  and  as  an  ensign  on  an  hill,"  marks  the  com- 
mencement of  all  Puritan  story  on  this  transatlantic  soil. 
Their  posterity  hate  saintly  festivals  and  relics,  by  right  of 
*'  uninterrupted  succession."  But  they  have  nevertheless 
dignified  the  birth-day  of  this  rock's  Puritanic  fame,  as  a 
day  for  something  more  substantial  than  red  letters  in  a 
Cidendar.  They  have  given  the  rock  itself  more  honor, 
than  a  Papist  would  confer  upon  a  leg  of  St.  Ignatius,  or  a 
Prelatist  would  accord  to  a  consecrated  church.  They  have 
not  worshipped  it,  indeed ;  for  a  Papist  never  worships 
relics,  he  only  bestows  upon  them  "due  honor  and  venera- 
tion."t  But  they  have  called  it  by  a  name,  as  sacred  as 
might  be  given  to  the  purest  heart,  which  was  ever  a 
temple  for  the  Holy  Ghost.  They  have  called  it  "  sancti- 
fied !"| '* 

Now  by  the  side  of  something  thus  exalted,  beyond  Pa- 

"■*  See  Note  74. 

because  of  his  "  unwavering  faith  and  prophetic  spirit."  Wilson  no  doubt 
spoke  out  plainly,  and  without  fear,  because  he  was  on  his  death-bed. 
And  had  his  language  but  honored  Puritanism,  as  much  as  it  condemned 
it,  instead  of  finding  him  set  down  as  an  old  driveller,  we  should  have 
seen  him  compared  to  Moses  in  the  book  of  Deuteronomy :  "  His  eye 
was  not  dim,  nor  his  natural  force  abated."  Poor  Sir  John,  your  honesty 
has  robbed  you  of  a  splendid  epitaph  I — T  say  Sir  John  ;  for  the  Puritans, 
unable  to  call  Paul  and  James,  &c.  by  the  name  of  saint,  gave  them  the 
title  of  a  knight.  Thus  Sir  Paul,  Sir  James,  See.  This  was  another  of 
their  ways  to  avoid  Popery  I — Maskell's  Martin  Mar-Prelate,  pp.  175, 176. 

»  Watkins's  Biog.  Diet.  p.  586.  t  Creed  of  Pope  Pius  IV. 

t  See  Boston  Columbian  Centinel  for  March  2,  1835. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  133 

pistical  relics  or  Prelatical  cathedrals,  is  the  fit  place  to  ex- 
amine that  wondrous  piece  of  parchment,  to  which  I  have 
acrain  and  again  referred,  and  on  which  Puritan  hopes 
grounded  as  pertinacious  and  as  just  a  claim,  as  that  of  pa- 
pal Spaniards,  when  half  the  globe  was  given  them  by 
Heaven's  Vicar  for  the  whole.  King  James  was  no  Pope, 
indeed,  but  sufficiently  heaven's  viceregent,  M'hen  disposed, 
through  his  patent  to  the  Plymouth  Council,  to  sanction  or 
connive  at  Puritan  appetites  for  '*  the  entire  property"  of 
that,  which  Ap.  Laud  said  they  had  fallen  quite  in  love  with  : 
I  mean  the  solid  soil*  And  here  I  cannot  perhaps  do 
better,  than  give  Mr.  Bancroft's  version  of  this  most  com- 
prehensive instrument ;  for  he  is  a  gentleman  having  an 
inkling  for  philosophic  views  and  statesmanlike  descriptions, 
and  a  devotee  of  sententious  brevity. 

The  company  in  England  with  whom  the  Puritans  had 
leagued  themselves,  under  the  ban  of  whose  princely  privi- 
leges they  expected  to  grow  from  a  mustard  seed  into  ''  the 
greatest  of  trees,"  were  incorporated  as  "  The  Council  es- 
tablished at  Plymouth,  in  the  county  of  Devon,  for  the 
planting,  ruling,  ordering,  and  governing  New  England  in 
America."!  "  The  territory,"  says  Mr.  B.,"  conferred  on  the 
patentees  in  absolute  property,  with  unlimited  jurisdiction, 
the  sole  powers  of  legislation,  the  appointment  of  all  officers 
and  all  forms  of  government,  extended  in  breadth  from  the 
40th  to  the  48th  degree  of  north  latitude,  and  in  length  from 
the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  :  that  is  to  say,  nearly  all  the 
inhabited  British  possessions  in  the  north  of  the  United 
States,  all  New  England,  New-York,half  of  New  Jersey,  very 
nearly  all  Pennsylvania,  and  the  whole  of  the  country  to  the 
west  of  these  States,  comprising,  and  at  the  time  believed  to 
comprise  much  more  than  a  million  of  square  miles,  capable 
of  sustaining  far  more  than  two  hundred  millions  of  inhabitants, 

*  Laud's  Troubles,  p.  142.  t  Bancroft,  i.  272. 


134  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

were,  by  a  single  signature  of  King  James,  given  away  to  a 
single  corporation  within  the  realm,  composed  of  but  forty 
individuals.  The  grant  was  absolute  and  exclusive ;  it  con- 
ceded the  land  and  the  islands,  the  rivers  and  the  harbors  ; 
the  mines  and  the  fisheries.  Without  the  leave  of  the 
Council  of  Plymouth,  not  a  ship  might  sail  into  a  harbor 
from  Newfoundland  to  the  latitude  of  Philadelphia,  not  a 
skin  might  be  purchased  in  the  interior,  not  a  fish  might  be 
caught  on  the  coast,  not  an  emigrant  might  tread  the  soil. 
*  *  *  The  patent  left  the  emigrants  at  the  mercy  of  the 
unrestrained  power  of  the  corporation  ;  and  it  was  under 
concessions  from  that  plenary  power,  confirmed  indeed  by 
the  English  monarch,  that  institutions  the  most  favorable  to 
colonial  liberty  were  established."  This  last  hint  is  cor- 
roborated, by  Mr.  Graham,  in  respect  to  King  Charles  I. 
also.  "  It  is  indeed  a  strange  coincidence,  that  this  arbi- 
trary prince,  at  the  very  time  he  was  exercising  the  sternest 
despotism  over  the  royalists  in  Virginia,  should  have  been 
cherishing  the  principles  of  liberty  in  New  England."* 

It  may  appear  somewhat  singular,  that  such  an  instru- 
ment could  ever  have  been  obtained  from  any  monarch. 
But  there  were  conspiring  causes,  which  influenced  the 
"especial  grace,  certain  knowledge,  and  mere  motion"  of 
the  royal  mind.  Noble  dependents  were  to  be  provided  for. 
Flatterers  were  to  be  rewarded.  Complainants  wanted 
hush-money.  Merchants  desired  encouragement.  Com- 
merce sought  for  guidance,  adventure,  and  protection.  And 
lastly,  "  and  which  was  not  the  least,"  as  the  Plymouth 
Secretary  phrases  it,  the  turbulent  might  be  removed,  and 
vent  their  spleen  where  its  nitric  fumes  might  be  less  cor- 
rosive, or  spend  themselves  like  a  bomb-shell  bursting  in 
upper  air.  The  king  promised  to  connive  at  even  their 
Puritanism,  "  provided  they  behaved  peaceably  ;"t  a  tole- 

*  North  America,  i.  2G0.     Compare  Burks  Virginia,  ii.  8. 
t   Belknap's  Biog.  i.  365. — Chalmers'  Annals,  pp.  85.  86. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  135 

rable  proof,  by  the  way,  that  at  home  they  had  behaved  in 
any  manner  but  a  peaceable  one,  under  the  influence  of  that 
ecclesiastical  system.  There  were  Puritans  among  the 
high  and  the  mighty,  ("  people  of  distinguished  family  and 
fortune,"  as  Mr.  Graham  calls  them,  N.  America  i.  257,) 
who,  whether  for  political,  commercial,  or  religious  reasons, 
labored  to  advance  the  views  of  their  humbler  brethren — 
humbler  I  mean  in  rank  or  opulence.  Beyond  a  question, 
they  knew  the  hazard  of  the  game  they  played  at,  and 
were  not  a  little  anxious  to  secure  some  distant  place  of  re- 
fuge, should  their  hopes  be  blown  and  lost.  Says  the  au- 
thor of  European  settlements  in  America,  (ii.  140.)  "  This 
colony  [Plymouth]  received  its  principal  assistance  from 
the  discontent  of  several  great  men  of  the  Puritan  party, 
who  were  its  protectors,  and  who  entertained  a  design  of 
settling  among  them  in  New  England,  if  they  should  fail  in 
the  measures  tliey  were  pursuing,  for  establishing  the  liberty 
and  reforming  the  religion  of  their  mother  country"* — es- 
tablishing a  liberty  and  religion,  our  author  might  have 
added,  which  made  even  Presbyterians  groan  !  The  cele- 
brated Presbyterian,  Walker,  called  the  reign  of  such  liberty 
and  religion,  *'  The  English  Anarchy. "t  These  various 
causes  and  interests,  combined  and  operating,  hatched  a 
golden  Qggi  which  no  one  of  them  alone  could  perhaps  have 
brought  to  light. 

And  yet  so  strange,  so  wayward  is  human  nature,  that 
while  the  Puritans  wanted  all  the  benefits  which  Charters 
would  convey,  they  were  nevertheless,  (though  at  the  hazard 
of  sawing  off  the  limb  between  themselves  and  the  tree,) 
sorely  tempted  to  dispute  a  king's  right  to  grant  them.  The 
House  of  Commons,   where  there  were  men    who  looked 


*  Dr.  Morse   endorses  this.     Geography,  p.  157.  ed.  1792. — Raynal 
does  also.     West  Indies,  v.  180. — See  also  Note  75. 
t  Biog.  Universelle,  vol.  50,  p.  85. 


136  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

anxiously  to  New  England  as  a  dernier  resort,  summoned 
Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges,  the  President  of  the  Plymouth 
Council,  and  required  him  to  deliver  uj3  his  Patent,  because 
forsootii  it  was  a  king's  monopoly  !*  How  completely  this 
illustrates  their  ungracious  demeanor  towards  royalty. 
They  would  cut  off  the  hand  that  blessed  them,  if  it  was 
linked  to  a  royal  shoulder. t  O,  if  Charles  II,,  when  he  or- 
dered the  writ  of  quo  warranto  to  be  issued  against  the 
Government  of  Massachusetts,  had  quoted  from  the  Journal 
of  a  Puritan  House  of  Commons,  and  told  them  they  were 
a  monopoly,  built  up  by  royal  hands,  he  might  have  made 
his  court  ring  with  louder  laughter,  than  when  the  bribe  of 
2000  guineas  was  unfortunately  published. |  But  Charles 
resorted  to  other  arguments  ;  and  the  one  about  a  monopoly 
was  left  for  them  to  employ,  with  as  much  effect,  and  as 
little  consistency,  as  often  marked  their  purposes.  They 
wearied  out  the  Plymouth  Company,  when  they  had  obtained 
a  better  means  of  accomplishing  their  aims ;  to  wit,  a 
Charter  for  their  own  private  use.  The  Plymouth  Com- 
pany worn  down  with  opposition,  gave  up  their  Patent  of 
their  own  accord  ;  but  the  Puritans  clung  to  the  Charter 
over  which  they  exercised  entire  control,  as  the  body  clings 
to  the  spirit — to  the  latest  gasp. 

But  I  am  insensibly,  and  almost  unavoidably,  anticipat- 

*  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  series,  vi.  66,  67.  Belknap's  Biog.  i.  369. 
Pownall  on  the  Colonies,  pp.  48,  49,  fourth  edition. 

t  The  Kpiscopal  king  granted,  but  the  Puritan  House  would  not,  the 
right  of  self-taxation — the  very  thing  our  fathers  of '76  fought  and  bled 
for  ! — Chalmers'  Revolt  of  the  Colonies,  i.  35.  We  see,  then,  to  whom 
the  necessity  for  a  Revolution  in  '76,  may  ultimately  be  traced.  Had  the 
Puritans  permitted  the  king  to  make  his  grants  of  self-taxation  unre- 
buked,  a  precedent  w^ould  have  been  established,  which  would  have  made 
a  Revolution  and  a  civil  war  needless.  While  the  men  ^^hose  forefa- 
thers would  not  prevent  .such  awful  consequences,  are  the  very  men  who 
now  ascribe  those  consequences  to  Episcopacy  ! 

\  Chalmers,  p.  413. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  137 

ing  ;  the  portions  of  this  history  so  run  together.  While 
the  Plymouth  Patent  was  the  best  which  offered,  the  Puri- 
tans were  by  no  means  backward  to  make  the  most  of  it  ; 
monopoly  though  it  were,  and  **  a  grievance  of  the  Com- 
monwealth." The  story  usually  told,  of  course  is,  that  the 
proposition  to  avail  themselves  of  the  shelter  and  privileges 
of  the  Plymouth  Council  came  from  themselves — that  the 
Leyden  Puritans,  e.  g.  first  resolved  to  abandon  Holland,  of 
*'  their  own  free  choice  and  motion."  But  Sir  Ferdinando 
Gorges,  who  was  under  no  temptation  to  misstate,  and 
whom  the  House  of  Commons  pronounced  "  a  gentleman  of 
honor  and  worth,"*  presents  us  with  a  very  different  tale. 
He  says  that  the  Virginia  Company,  being  somewhat  strait- 
ened in  their  means,  were  advised  to  make  offers  t  to  the 
Puritans  in  Holland;  who  if  they  had  "  such  freedom  and 
liberty  as  might  stand  with  their  likings,"  would  work 
cheaper  for  them  than  others.  He  says  that  the  Puritans 
closed  with  these  offers,  and  sailed  for  New  England  ; 
where  finding  "  that  the  authority  they  had  from  the  Com- 
pany of  Virginia  could  not  warrant  their  abode,"  they  ap- 
plied to  him. 

The  current  version  of  their  romance  also  is,  that  their 
sufferings  in  New  England  were  almost  intolerable.  But 
Gorges  declares,  that  they  found  the  country  *'  so  prosper- 
ous and  pleasing  to  them,  they  hastened  away  their  ship 
with  order  to  their  Solicitor  to  deal  with"  him,  ''  to  be  a 
means  they  might  have  a  grant  from  the  Council  of  New 
England's  affairs  to  settle  in  the  place  ;  which  was  accord- 
ingly performed  to  their  particular  satisfaction,  and  good 
content  of  them  all."| 

This  account  mars  the  poetry   and  sinks  the  pathos  of 

*  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  series,  vi.  66,  67.     Belknap's  Biog.  i.  370. 
t  "  To  draw"  others,  and  not  "  to  be  drawn"  themselves,  is  the  lan- 
guage of  Gorges. — Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  series,  vi.  73. 
\  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  series,  vi.  73. 


138  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

the  scheme  for  leaving  Holland  ;  but  it  is  too  simple,  sensi- 
ble, self-consistent,  and  disinterested,  to  be  otherwise  than 
true.  I  must  acc^^pt  it,  and  represent  the  plan  for  depar- 
ture from  the  *'  sweet  liberties"  of  a  Calvinistic  territory,  as 
one  suggested  by  a  company  of  mercantile  adventurers ; 
who,  on  the  one  hand,  would  indulge  tender  consciences,  if, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  possessors  of  those  consciences  would 
do  their  best  to  replenish  said  company's  exhausted  coffers. 
This  plan  was  originated  by  mercantile  speculators,  and 
was  entered  into  as  a  mercantile  compact ;  in  which  "  such 
freedom  and  liberty  as  might  stand  with"  the  *'  likings"  of 
one  of  the  contracting  parties,  was  specified  as  an  actual 
consideration,  along  with  grosser  matters  of  per  centage, 
ships,  and  trade.  Puritan  fancy,  Puritan  rhymes,  Puritan  ora- 
tors, and  Puritan  historians,  may  put  a  fairer  and  more  spirit- 
ual representation  upon  these  unpoetic  facts.  But  the  plain, 
unvarnished  statements  of  Gorges,  will  always  look  a  hun- 
dred-fold more  like  the  naked,  natural  truth.* 

There  is  another  point  brought  plainly  out  by  the  nar- 
rative of  Gorges,  and  which  should  be  particularly  observed. 
I  believe  it  is  not  an  uncommon  thing  for  the  readers  of 
Puritan  history,  who  would  throw  as  much  as  possible  of 
the  halo  of  romance  about  it,  to  confound  the  connexion  of 
the  Puritans  with  the  Virginia  Company  and  the  Plymouth 
Council,  and  to  transfer  all  the  hardness  of  their  bargain 
with  the  former,  to  their  patent  under  the  latter.  Their 
bargain  with  the  Virginia  Company  was  a  close  one ;  for  as 
Gorges  , testifies  the  funds  of  the  company  were  low,  and 
they  were  obliged  to  count  their  coppers.  "  The  terms  of 
the  contract,"  says  Mr.  Bancroft,  "  were  deemed  exceed- 
ingly  severe."!     And  the   impositions  of  the  contract,  if 

*  Even  Hutchinson  admits  a  strong  doubt  about  religion's  concern  in 
"the  settlement"  of  North  America.  He  ascribes  its  "present  flourish- 
ing state"  to  that  cause. — Hutch.  Hist.  i.  11. 

t  Bancroft,  i.  305. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  139 

they  were  such,  if  they  submitted  to  them  blindly,  have 
been  **  aggravated  when  convenient ;"'  as  Baxter,  in  his 
Reformed  Liturgy,  (p.  64,)  actually  allows  a  minister  to  do 
with  the  sins  of  the  impenitent.  One  would  think,  that  the 
iron  of  feudal  bondage  was  all  the  while  entering  into  their 
souls.  But  the  exact  truth  is,  as  Gorges  states,  that  their 
fealty  to  the  Virginia  Company  was  of  short  duration  ;  for 
finding,  or  suspecting  themselves  to  be  out  of  its  jurisdic- 
tion, and  of  course  out  of  its  protection,  they  forthwith  ap- 
plied to  him,  as  the  head  of  the  Plymouth  Council,  to  be 
brought  under  the  wing  of  a  better  corporation.  Their 
wishes  were  complied  with,  to  the  ''  particular  satisfaction 
and  good  content  of  them  all."  And  even  Mr.  Bancroft  is 
constrained  to  admit,  that  their  agent  in  London  "  obtained 
from  the  Council  of  Plymouth,  concessions  equal  to  all  his 
desires."* 

How  worse  than  idle  then,  how  unfair,  and  how  untrue, 
to  represent  them  as  distressed  by  a  bargain,  in  which  they 
were  not  the  applicants  but  the  appiied-to ;  and  that  they 
wrung  hard  concessions  from  those,  who  took  advantage  of 
their  needs,  instead  of  being  themselves,  by  "  their  own  free 
choice  and  motion,"  the  accepters  of  a  scheme  and  terms, 
proposed  to  them  by  a  mercantile  association  !  And  how 
still  more  destitute  of  truth  and  fairness,  the  picture,  which 
represents  them  grinding  in  such  a  sort  of  prison-mill,  as 
that  at  which  poor  Gorton  labored  ;t  when  lo  !  they  were 
soon  situated  under  better  auspices,  to  the  particular  satis- 
faction and  good  content  of  every  soul  among  them,  with 
all  their  desires  responded  to.  Trahit  sua  quemque  volup- 
tas  :  if  such  a  situation  could  not  please  them,  where  could 
they  have  found  one,  in  which  contentment  would  have 
seen  them  professedly  more  true  disciples  1 

*  Bancroft,  i.  320. 

t  Spark's  American  Biography,  2d  series,  v.  364. 


140  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITAiS'S. 

And  much  poetry  and  rhetoric  too  is  often  wasted  upon 
the  sufferings,  which  the  Puritans  at  first  endured  from  the 
inhospitable  soil  and  clime  of  young  New  England.  Many 
a  sentimental  eye  sees  nothing  but  parched  corn  upon  their 
table,  and  an  avalanche  of  snow  upon  their  roof '^  Gorges 
admits,  that  when  they  landed  at  Plymouth  many  of  them 
were  weak  and  feeble.  "  But,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  *'  they 
were  not  many  days  ashore,  before  they  had  gotten  both 
health  and  strength,  through  the  comfort  of  the  air,  the  store 
of  fish  and  fowl,  with  plenty  of  wholesome  roots  and  herbs 
the  country  afforded  :  besides  the  civil  respect  the  natives 
used  towards  them,  tending  much  to  their  happiness  in  so 
great  extremity  they  were  in.''*  And  to  this  the  Puritan 
historian  Trumbull  fully  agrees.  *'  In  New  England,  Provi- 
dence had  prepared  the  way  for  their  settlement.  The  un- 
common mortality  in  1617  had  in  a  manner  depopulated 
that  part  of  the  country,  in  which  they  began  their  planta- 
tion. They  found  fields  which  had  been  planted,  without 
owners,  and  a  fine  country  round  them,  in  some  measure 
cultivated,  without  an  inhabitant."! 

It  will  be  supposed,  no  doubt,  that  the  attractions  of 
this  "fine  country"  were  utterly  unknown  and  unthought-of, 
by  the  humble-minded  Puritans.  But  this  could  hardly  be. 
Captain  Smith's  description  of  New  England,  where  he 
displayed  upon  his  very  title-page  "  the  proofeof  the  present 
benefit  this  country  affbords;  whither,  this  present  yeare 
1616,  eight  voluntary  Ships  are  gone  to  make  further  try- 
ale,"  was  published  no  less  than  four  years  before  the  ex- 

'**  See  Note  76. 

"*  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  series,  vi.  73. 

t  Trumbull's  United  States,  p.  72. — So  says  Gov.  Winthrop,  in  a 
letter  to  his  son  in  England.  "  Here  can  be  no  want  of  any  thing,  to 
those  who  bring  means  to  raise  out  of  the  earth  and  sea." — He,  too, 
would  tempt  the  rich. — Savage's  Wint.  i.  375. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  141 

pedition  in  the  Mayflower.*  And  Smith  himself  was  not 
unknown  to  the  adventurers  from  Leyden.  He  would  have 
sailed  with  them  to  Plymouth,  and  might  have  been  of  im- 
mense service  to  them,  if  they  would  have  recompensed  his 
personal  experience  and  ingenuity.  But  the  Pilgrims  pre- 
ferred his  books  and  maps  to  his  more  costly  self;  because, 
as  he  says  in  his  quaint  way,  they  were  "  much  better 
cheap."  No  wonder  he  should  add  somewhat  of  a  philo- 
sophic comment  on  their  penuriousness.  "  Many  other 
have  used  the  like  goo*d  husbandry,  that  have  payed  sound- 
ly in  trying  their  self-willed  conclusions. "f 

That  New  England  soon  became  in  Puritanic  eyes  an 
El  Dorado,  however  some  may  suppose  it  was  at  first  con- 
templated but  as  a  mere  place  of  refuge  from  the  storms  of 
persecution,  is  amply  evident  from  the  fact,  that  emigration 
to  it  became  such  a  perfect  tide,  that  it  was  checked  by 
Government. I  But  this,  in  Puritan  historians,  is  no  proof 
that  New  England  was  becoming  a  most  desirable  abode  ;  it 
only  evinces  another  burst  of  hostility  on  the  part  of  Pre- 
latical  authorities.  But  how,  or  why,  should  a  Government 
which  all  along  had  countenanced  their  going,  at  last  ar- 
rest it?  because  of  their  hatred  of  their  faith,  and  desire  to 
have  them  longer  within  reach  of  persecution's  fangs  ?  So 
multitudes  would  say,  and  spontaneously  believe.  But  let 
us  hear  the  uncommitted  Gorges,  on  this  delicate  subject. 
''The  reason  of  that  restraint,"  he  affirms,  "  was  grounded 
upon  the  several  complaints  that  came  out  of  those  parts,  of 
the  divers  sects  and  schisms  that  were  amongst  them  all, 
contemning  the  public  government  of  the  ecclesiastical 
state.  And  it  was  doubted  that  they  would,  in  short  time, 
wholly  shake  off  the  royal  jurisdiction   of  the   Sovereign 

*  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  series,  vi.  95. 
t  Smith's  Gen.  Hist.  ii.  263. 

X  Europ.  Sett.  ii.  140,  141. — "  The  passion  for  land"  became  a  per- 
fect epidemic. — Bancroft's  United  States,  i.  328. 

7* 


142  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

Magistrate."*  And  what  then  was  the  protection  that 
England  assumed  to  herself,  in  such  threatening  circum- 
stances— circumstances  which  the  after  history  of  Massa- 
chusetts more  and  more  developed  ?  This,  says  Gorges,  on 
the  page  just  quoted  :  She  insisted  none  should  go,  until 
they  had  taken  ''  the  oaths  of  supremacy  and  allegiance." 
But  this  the  Puritans  would  not  consent  to."  They  would 
sooner  desert  the  realm,  by  stealth  or  violence.  They 
might  go  scot-free  with  their  religion,  if  they  would  swear 
to  be  loyal  to  their  lawful  Sovereign.  But  that  they  ob- 
stinately refused  to  do.  And  what  does  this  prove,  but 
what  has  been  proved  before,  that  their  cavils  and  clamors 
were  political  rather  than  religious — that  they  wanted  not 
the  Government's  tolerance,  but  the  Government  itself. 
And  as  they  could  not  obtain  their  foremost  aim,  they 
wanted  the  privilege  of  establishing  their  economy  on 
the  **  outside  of  the  world,"  as  they  expressed  it,t  so  it  might 
be  out  of  "  view"  and  beyond  "  reach."  *'  You  may  have 
your  way,"  says  an  accommodating  King,  "  provided  you  will 
not  use  your  power  against  myself,  but  will  still  be  loyal  to 
authority  at  home."  "No,"  is  the  virtual  answer,  *'  we  will 
run  the  gauntlet  first,  and  owe  you  no  allegiance  we  can 
possibly  avoid."  "  Then,"  the  reply  is,  "  I  will  stop  you 
if  I  can."^^  And  this  is  persecution — persecution  to  the 
uttermost  ;J  and  the  men  who  suffer  it  are,  (when  they  are 
supplicating  for  a  charter,)  are  terribly  afraid  they  shall  "  lose 
their  interest  in  the  English  nation — they  being  desirous 
rather  to  enlarge  his  Majesty's  dominions,  and  to  live  under 
their  natural  Prince!" 

Well,  we  have  the  major  portion  of  the  Ley  den  congre- 

'7  See  Note  77.  "  See  Note  78. 

*  Mass.  Hist.   Coll.  3d  series,  vi    80-82.     Belknap's  Biography,  i. 
38]  .—Compare  Chalmers'  Revolt  of  the  Col.  i.  44,  45. 

t  Hutchinson,  i.  448.  t  Neal's  New  England,  i.  151. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  143 

gallon  established  around  Plymouth  Bay  at  last :  whether 
the  whole  came  over,  Dr.  Morse  says  must  remain  uncer- 
tain.* But  as  the  advocates  of  Puritanic  exclusive  privi- 
leges would  fain  incline  us  to  believe,  they  were  destined  to 
be  disturbed  afresh  by  Prelatic  neighbors.  The  Plymouth 
Council  gave  a  patent  to  a  son  of  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges,  in 
1633,  for  a  tract  on  Massachusetts  Bay.  This  gentleman 
was  appointed  Lieutenant-General  of  New  England  ;  and 
with  him  came  one  William  Morrell,  an  Episcopalian  in 
holy  orders,  who  was  to  be  his  compeer  in  the  Church ! 
This  was  an  ominous  step  indeed.  But  (a  most  singular 
fact!)  it  was  the  nearest  approach  to  an  English  bishopric, 
which  this  country  was  ever  destined  to  behold.  The  set- 
tlement of  Gorges  did  not  succeed,!  and  Morrell  never  as- 
sumed any  powers  which  might  have  been  intrusted  to  him  : 
in  fact,  was  so  modest  and  so  prudent,  that  though  he  re- 
sided in  New  England  above  a  year,  he  never  mentioned 
his  intended  character,  till  just  before  his  departure  to 
his  native  land.  |  He  left  behind  him  a  poem  on 
New  England,  in  Latin  and  English,  which  may  be  found 
in  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Collections,  at  the  reference 
just  given.  And  thus  ended  an  expedition  which  was 
looked  upon  by  many,  as  likely  to  bring  with  it  Star  Cham- 
bers, High  Commissions,  and  Archbishops.  It  did  not 
vaunt  itself;  and  so  Mr.  Bancroft  permits  it  to  depart  with 
a  quiet  sneer.  "  They  came  to  plant  a  hierarchy  and  a 
General  Government,   and  they  produced  only   a  fruitless 

*  Geography,  p.  157. 

t  Gorges  himself  tells  us  why.  Because  the  Puritans  at  Plymouth, 
hearing  he  was  in  trouble  at  home,  drew  off  from  his  son,  and  left  him 
"  disabled  to  do  any  thing  to  purpose." — Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  series, 
vi.  74. 

X  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  series,  i.  125.  Davis's  Morton,  p.  109.  Bay- 
lies' Plym.  i.  125. 


144  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

quarrel  and  a  dull  poem,"*  It  was  unquestionably  better, 
however,  for  Episcopacy  to  end  its  attempts  in  that  "  dull" 
way,  than  to  write  its  temper,  as  Draco  and  as  Puritanism 
wrote  their  laws  and  deeds,  in  characters  of  blood.  What 
would  not  Gov.  Winthrop  have  given,  in  those  final  hours 
when  he  bitterly  repented  having  been  the  instrument  of 
Puritan  cruelty, f  if  he  had  only  had  such  a  stupid  crime  to 
answer  for ! 

There  is  nothing  further  for  me  particularly  to  allude 
to  at  this  period  of  the  history  of  New  England ;  and  I  will 
here  bid  Plymouth  farewell,  and  turn  to  the  Charters  of 
Massachusetts.  Before  doing  so,  however,  I  cheerfully 
quote  a  compliment  from  Dr.  Morse,  that,  *'  However  rigid 
the  New  Plymouth  colonists  may  have  been,  at  their  first 
separation  from  the  Church  of  England,  yet  they  never  dis- 
covered that  persecuting  spirit  which  we  have  seen  in  Mas- 
sachusetts."|  And  sorry  am  I  to  find,  that  Massachusetts 
should  have  so  little  respected  Plymouth,  as  to  keep  it  in 
perpetual  awe,  and  make  one  of  the  disturbers  of  its  peace 
a  member  of  its  General  Court,  because  he  was  "  a  daring 
trader  among  the  Indians. '"§  Massachusetts,  as  we  know, 
finally  swallowed  Plymouth  up  alive,  and  she  became  but 
one  of  her  fourteen  counties;  pretty  much  as  she  remains 
at  the  present  day.  ^yhen  the  deed  was  done,  and  Plymouth 
ceased  to  be  a  separate  colony  in  1691,  her  agent  in  Eng- 
land could  not  refrain  from  bitter  objurgation.  He  thus 
wrote  home  to  the  last  Governor.    "  All  the  frame  of  heaven 

*  Bancroft,  i.  326. — Belknap,  however,  compliments  Morrell.  Per- 
haps because  he  did  not  turn  out  an  Archbishop  Laud.     Biog.  i.  368. 

t  Belknap's  Biog.  ii.  356.     Savage's  VVint.  ii.  174. 

X  Geog.  p.  156. — Compare  Chalmers'  Annals,  p.  97. — Morse  doubt- 
less had  Chalmers'  testimony  in  his  eye  ;  but,  ut  inodo,  he  mollifies  it. 
For  example,  Chalmers  does  not  say  "  never  discovered,"  but  "  seldom 
discovered." 

§  Baylies'  Plymouth,  Pt.  i.  pp.  132,  133,  217,  and  notes. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  145 

moves  on  one  axis,  and  the  whole  of  New  England's  interest 
seems  designed  to  be  loaden  on  one  bottom,  and  her  partic- 
ular motions  to  concentrate  to  the  Massachusetts  tropic."* 

Come  we  now  to  that  ascendant  Colony,  which  im- 
pressed multitudes  about  its  designs  upon  New  England,  as 
Caesar  impressed  Cato  about  his  designs  upon  the  world. 
On  the  4th  of  March,  A.  D.  16-29,  King  Charles  I.  granted 
a  Charter  to  certain  individuals,  styled  "  the  Company  of 
Massachusetts  Bay."  And  this  charter,  when  it  had  been 
vacated  under  a  writ  of  quo  icarranto,  on  the  18th  of  June, 
1684,  was  followed  by  another  from  William  and  Mary,  on 
the  7th  of  October,  1691.  Thus  a  charter,  and  a  royal 
charter,  with  the  stamp  of  monopoly  and  popular  grievance 
on  its  front,  is,  notwithstanding,  you  see,  the  banner  under 
which,  sooner  than  live  in  such  a  place  as  Holland,  with  its 
freedom  for  conscience  and  the  austerest  Calvinism,  anti- 
monarchists  and  anti-Churchmen  are  content  to  sail. 

And,  what  is  singular  indeed,  they  loved  such  charters 
better,  absolutely  better,  than  the  tender  mercies  of  a  Puri- 
tanic Parliament.  In  the  days  of  the  Commonwealth,  in 
1651,  there  was  a  rumor  that  their  royal  charter  would  be 
taken  from  them.t  Thereupon  along,  circuitous,  and  most 
peculiar  address  was  forwarded  to  Parliament ;  in  which,  lest 
it  appear  that  the  Colony  had  been  a  charge  at  its  founda- 
tion to  the  parent  country,  they  represent  themselves  as  hav- 
ing left  home  rich,  and  spent  money  freely  :  in  which  again, 
lest  they  appear  rich  now,  and  thus  become  a  mark  for  politi- 
cal cupidity,  they  represent  themselves  as  living  in  "  a  mean 
and  low  condition;"  and  in  which,  finally,  so  much  greater  is 
their  fear  of  republicans  than  of  a  monarch,  they  importu- 
nately supplicate  that  "  it  shall  go  no  worse  with  them  than 
it  did  under  the  late  King."     The  document  may  be  found 


"*  Baylies'  Plymouth,  Pt.  iv.  p.  138. 

t  The  address,  or  petition,  itself  shows  this. 


146  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

in  the  appendix  to  Hutchinson's  first  volume  of  his  history, 
and  is  altogether  one  of  the  most  unique  specimens  of  Pu- 
ritanic logic,  and  Puritanic  love  of  gain  and  power,  which 
can  any  where  be  found. 

The  tyrannical  patronage  of  one  monarch  rather  than  a 
hundred,  is  then  that  which  suits  the  preferences  of  Puritans. 
Under  this  they  feel  safe  in  attempting  to  erect  a  new  politi- 
cal constitution,  which,  according  to  the  terms  of  the  old 
oath,  they  might  "  beautify  with  their  presence."  There 
was  no  hope  for  independence  under  a  Parliament.  There 
was  such  hope  under  a  King — a  hope  which  was  ultimately 
fruition.  No  wonder  they  loved  royal  charters  so  dearly, 
when  not  called  to  discuss  their  merits  in  a  House  of  Com- 
mons, but  to  enjoy  their  privileges  in  a  house  exclusively 
their  own.  Bad,  then,  as  Kings  are,  Protestant  Episcopal 
ones  are  useful  for  some  purposes.  Independence  may,  in 
in  some  way  or  other,  be  gleaned  out  of  their  charters.  But 
Puritan  Parliaments  and  Popish  Kings  are  utterly  impracti- 
cable :  they  offer  not  a  hook  to  hang  a  hope  on.  We  have 
seen  how  the  Puritans  dreaded  their  own  Parliament,  in  the 
document  from  Hutchinson's  appendix.  A  document  in 
the  same  appendix  will  show,  how  they  dreaded  Oliver 
Cromwell  also,  who  had  formed  a  strange  plan  for  having 
some  of  them,  as  they  express  it,  "transplanted  into  Ire- 
land." And  now,  as  neither  Parliaments  nor  my  Lord  Pro- 
tector give  them  any  satisfaction,  let  us  suppose  them  Hu- 
guenots, who  had  felt  the  weight  of  a  hand,  that  could  de- 
stroy so  solemn  an  edict  as  that  of  Nantes  with  a  single 
blow.  What  could  they  have  acquired  at  the  foot  of  the 
throne  of  the  "  Grand  Monarque  ?"  Firebrands,  arrows, 
and  death,  would  have  been  their  answer,  for  supplications 
in  behalf  of  conscience  there.* 

But  charters  can  be  obtained  from  a  Protestant  Episco- 

*  Miller's  Phil,  of  Hist.  iv.  104,  shows  how  the  losses  of  the  Hugue- 
nots were  indirectly  a  great  gain  to  the  Puritans. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  147 

pal  monarch  one  of  which  could  be  cherished  '*  as  the  most 
precious  boon,"*  and  a  second  hailed  "  almost  as  another 
magna  charta  of  liberty. "t  And  still  such  a  monarch  is 
stigmatized,  as  no  better  than  a  Papist  himself,  as  a  ruthless 
oppressor  of  consciences,  and  a  foe  to  the  liberties  of  his 
subjects.  Sooner  than  take  an  oath  of  allegiance  to  him,  they 
will  fly  from  their  native  land,  like  deserters,  to  ''the  outside 
of  the  world." 

Can  we  not  now  see,  how  much  of  truth  there  is,  and 
how  much  of  ad  captandiini  declamation,  in  the  flings  of 
Puritans  at  Churchmen,  with  a  king  as  their  civil  head,  de- 
nouncing them  as  "  mere  formalists,  angry  bigots,  fiery 
zealots,  sons  of  violence,  furious  persecutors,  Popishly  af- 
fected, haters  of  godliness  and  godly  men  ?"j:  Is  it  not  a 
part  of  a  Puritan's  destiny  to  vituperate  prelatical  England? 
have  not  the  Fates  ordained  him  to  it  ?  He  can  take  a 
charter  from  her,  indeed,  and  like  the  buyer  in  the  market 
say,  (Prov.  xx.  14,)  It  is  naught,  it  is  naught.  It  is  a  stark 
monopoly,  and  a  grievance  to  the  Commonwealth  for  a  king 
(one  man)  to  be  so  lavish  of  exclusive  privileges.  But  when 
he  is  gone  his  way,  then  he  boasteth  :  his  berated  parch- 
ment becomes  a  most  precious  boon,  and  an  almost  magna 
charta  of  liberty.  He  sees  in  all  its  pages,  but  one  feature 
against  which  he  can  with  the  slightest  consistency  mur- 
mur, and  that  is  an  exception  of  Papists  from  toleration. 
This  was  found  in  the  Charter  of  William  and  Mary,  while 
that  of  Charles  was  silent  upon  the  subject  of  religious  privi- 
eges.  Of  course  he  preferred  that ;  for  then  he  could  deal 
with  religion  as  he  pleased,  and  tolerate  nobody  :  moreover, 
that  Charter  had  no  such  uncomfortable  injunctions,  as  the 


*  Bancroft,  i  342. 

t  Story's  Misc.  p.   64. — Compare    Mather's  Life  of  Phips,  p.  63. 
Hutch.  Hist.  iii.  84. 

t  White's  Letters  to  Dissenters,  i.  8. 


]4S  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

new  one,  about  oaths  to  Government  ;*  and  thus  allowed 
him  (as  he  understood  it)  to  pay  allegiance  to  no  one  but 
himself.  Still,  King  William's  Charter  was  no  mean  one 
for  civil  privileges  ;  and  it  was  taken,  as  the  issue  shows, 
with  a  determination  to  abide  by  it,  in  all  which  gratified 
his  ambition,  or  promoted  his  worldly  interests,  and  to  treat 
it  as  a  dead  letter,  when  its  injunctions  did  not  please.  For 
example,  more  than  thirty  years  before,  had  King  Charles 
II.  issued  a  mandamus  to  save  Quakers  from  the  gallows  ; 
and  the  new  Charter  tolerated  every  body  but  a  Papist.  Yet 
in  1G94,  a  man  who  wrote  a  Quaker  pamphlet,  was  impri- 
soned for  nearly  a  whole  year,  and  all  his  books,  which  the 
sheriff  could  lay  his  hands  on,  committed  to  the  flames. t 
And  ten  years  later,  1704,  I  find  the  Quakers  impor- 
tuning the  Dissenters  in  England,  to  remonstrate  with  their 
brethren  in  New  England,  against  the  unrepealed  laws 
which  bore  upon  them  with  extreme  severity.  A  letter  was 
written,  at  their  request,  to  show  the  Government  at  heme 
that  Dissenters  there  would  not  deny  to  one  another,  what 
they  claimed  for  their  particular  party  !  t 

Such  did  the  Puritans  continue  to  be,  under  a  Charter 
which  pledged  all  but  unbounded  toleration.  As  to  the 
times  of  the  old  Charter,  especially  from  1640  to  1660, 
when,  says  Hutchinson, §  Massachusetts  "  approached  very 
near  to  an  independent  commonwealth,"  and  threw  off  all 
disguises — the  days  of  Endicott's  chief  glory — no  language 
could  more  truly  describe  their  temper,  than  that  of  the  au- 
thor, or  authors, II  of"  European  Settlements."  "  The  very 
doctrine  of  any  sort  of  toleration  was  so  odious  to  the  great- 

*  The  old  charter  empowered,  but  did  not  require,  the  administration 
of  such  oaths ;  because  it  was  intended  for  a  Company  who  were  to  stay 
in  England,  and  not  run  away  from  it  — See  Bancroft,  i.  343. 

+  Felt's  Annals  of  Salem,  pp.  323,  325. 

t  Calamy's  Life  of  Baxter  abridged,  i.  670. 

^  Hist.  ii.  10.  II  London  Gallery  of  Portraits,  iii.  34. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  149 

est  part,  that  one  of  the  first  persecutions  set  up  here  was 
against  a  small  party,  who  were  hardy  enough  to  maintain 
that  the  civil  magistrate  had  no  lawful  power,  to  use  com- 
pulsory measures  in  affairs  of  religion."* 

And  yet,  these  most  reluctant  yielders  to  toleration,  who 
kept  the  scorpion  whip  of  persecution  lying  by  their  sides, 
when  they  dare  no  longer  use  it,  are,  we  are  told,  among 
persecution's  most  blameless  victims.  They  are  those  "  fa- 
vorites with  heaven,"  about  the  "  severe  virtue"  *'  of  whose 
rude  intolerance,  the  world  has  been  filled  with  malignant 
calumnies. "t  They  are  those  moderate  exclusives,  whose 
"  transient  persecutions"  "  in  self-defence"  '*  were  no  more 
than  a  train  of  mists,  hovering  of  an  autumn  morning  over 
the  channel  of  a  fine  river,  that  diffused  freshness  and  fer- 
tility wherever  it  wound. "| 

The  Huguenots,  says  Mr.  Smedley  in  one  of  his  in- 
teresting and  able  volumes, §  exhibited  "  the  most  unresist- 
ing patience,"  beneath  a  system  which  would  have  dragoon- 
ed them  into  Popery.  But  they  might  as  well  have  looked 
for  water  *'  from  the  rock  of  flint,"  as  hoped  for  a  drop  of 
mercy  to  put  out  the  well-fed  fires,  beneath  which  they  and 
their  possessions  vanished  like  smoke  away.  The  Puritans 
were  as  unruly  and  libellous,  as  fiery  blood  and  unbridled 
tongues  could  make  them.||  But  they  obtained  privileges, 
securing  to  them  all  the  rights,  comforts,  immunities  and 
hopes,  with  which  social  safety,  and  nearly  entire  political 
independence,  could  enrich  them.  The  only  ugly  and  pro- 
voking page  in  a  charter,  "  almost  a  magna  charta  of  lib- 
erty," was  one  authorizing  a  partial  toleration  ;^   and  that, 


*  Eur.  Sett.  ii.  143.  t  Bancroft,  i.  348. 

X  Bancroft,  i.  463.  §  Eng.  edit.  iii.  256. 

II  The  Calvinists  of  Zurich  called  them  "  vain  brawlers."  Compare 
Epistle  to  Titus,  iii.  2. — Zurich  Letters,  p.  364. 

IT  They  thus  speak  of  those  who  advocated  toleration  in  New  Eng- 


J50  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

but  for  other  pages  of  antidote,  and  the  power  of  putting 
it  to  sleep,  they  would  willingly  have  treated  as  Jehudi  did 
the  prophet's  scroll.    (Jeremiah  xxxvi.  23.) 

But  notwithstanding  the  tale  goes  round  and  round,  as 
true  in  its  cycles  as  frosts  and  comets,  that  they  were  the 
meek,  unpitied  victims  of  a  stony  persecution,  that  all  but 
ground  them  into  powder.  Their  requiem  is  chanted  as 
formally  as  if,  like  Popish  masses,  it  could  shorten  the  pur- 
gation of  the  dead.  Their  acclaim  is  made  to  swell  and 
soar,  as  if  listening  angels  would  lean  from  from  the  skies 
to  hear  it.  The  very  spot  which  their  feet  first  touched,  is 
contemplated  with  a  reverence  not  surpassed  by  that  of  Mo- 
hammedans for  the  "  black  stone,"  brought  by  Gabriel  to 
Abraham,  and  on  which  the  Father  of  the  Faithful  '*  left 
the  print  o[  his  feet."*  This  spot  is  enclosed  from  all  rude 
and  ignoble  treading, t  and  is  to  be  guarded  with  due  sec- 
tarian vigilance,  to  all  future  time  ;  and  this  by  the  descend- 
ents  of  men,  who  broke  down  (he  carved  work  of  Episcopal 
temples  with  axes  and  hammers. t  (Ps.  Ixxiv.  6.)  And  the 
text  to  which  I  have  gone  for  its  terms,  they  would  have 
gone  to  for  authority,  to  justify  their  ruthless  demolition. 
Nor  is  that  all.  A  chip  of  Plymouth's  "  sanctified  rock"  is 
as  necessary  a  relic,  for  the  consecration  of  a  "  Church  of 
the  Pilgrims,"  as  the  bones  of  an  apostle  for  St.  Peter's  at 
Rome.  Godwin,  the  infidel,  and  who  wrote  an  essay  on  sepul- 

land :  "  buzzing  our  people  in  the  ear,  with  a  thing  they  call  liberty." 
Mass.  Hist.  Coll   2d  series,  iv.  21. 

*  Ch.  Butler's  Hor.  Bib.  p.  215. 

t  I  did  not  speak,  of  the  iron  railing,  &,c.,  around  the  Rock,  when 
speaking  of  the  trident  over  it.  It  would  be  horrible,  however,  for  a  Pa- 
pist to  put  a  railing  around  the  shrine  oi  his  devotion. 

X  See  Mercurjus  Rusticus  by  Ryves,  ed.  1685.  Pt.  ii.  116-163,  for 
facts ;  some  almost  too  enormous  to  be  credible. — That,  however,  was 
not  the  worst  of  Puritan  fury ;  sacrilege  was  defended  upon  principle  ! 
See  Gauden's  answer  to  its  pleas. — Tears  and  Sighs  of  the  Church  of 
England,  book  iii.  chaps.  20,  23. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  J5l 

chres  to  procure  honor  for  the  illustrious  dead — an  essay  he 
feared  his  name  would  injure — would  encounter  no  rebuke, 
if  he  spent  a  fortune  on  a  Mount  x4Luburn,  to  procure  repose 
for  Puritan  ashes.  The  Jiat  seems  to  have  issued  forth, 
that  as  the  place  where  Puritan  feet  first  rested,  shall  be 
evermore  "  sanctified,"  so  shall  Puritan  memory  be  ever- 
more glorified.  And  all  this,  too,  comes  from  the  "  High 
Commission  Court"  of  those,  who  detest  the  **  man-wor- 
ship" of  the  servile  Prelatist,  and  account  the  rites  and 
ceremonies  of  even  Protestant  Episcopacy  an  object  for 
ridicule,  it  matters  not  how  reckless,  if  "  well-conducted." 
"  We  do  not  hesitate,"  says  the  editor  of  the  Andover  Re- 
view, "  to  avow  the  belief,  that  well-conducted  ridicule  is 
a  proper,  and  will  be  a  most  useful  weapon,  against  the 
claims  of  Episcopacy."  And  what  is  one  of  the  first  and 
foremost  things,  on  which  this  "  well-conducted  ridicule"  is 
made  to  pounce  ?  On  the  habit  of  bowing  the  head  and 
offering  a  silent  prayer,  just  after  entering  the  house  of  God. 
O  terapora  !  O  mores  !  and  would  it  then  be  better  to  be 
listless  and  irreverent  ?  But  let  us  not  argue  ;  it  is  better  to 
condemn  such  a  censor  out  of  his  own  brethren's  mouth.  It 
is  the  custom  of  the  Calvinists  at  Zurich,  the  Calvinists  of 
Zuingle's  tutoring,  who  would  agree  with  such  a  censor  in 
one  of  his  most  favorite  theories,  (that  which  depreciates 
the  Eucharist  to  an  office  as  low  as  that  of  a  Papal  picture,) 
— it  is  the  custom  of  such  model  Calvinists,  to  do  precisely 
this  same  ridiculous  thing  !* 

And  is  tiiere  no  appeal  from  the  wilfulness  of  those,  who 
poured  abuse  upon  our  fathers,  and  whose  children  are 
solemnly  taught  to  turn  even  our  devotions  into  ridicule  ? 
Is  there  no  hope  for  the  reaction  of  honor  or  justice  ? 
Fearfully  not.  We  have  waited  for  the  returning  tide  of 
charity  and  wisdom — for  the  sanative  balm  of  time — "  more 

*  Turner's  Hist,  of  all  Religions,  edit.  1695,  pp.  230,  282,  289. 


152  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

than  they  that  watch  for  the  morning — I  say  more  than  they 
that  watcli  for  the  morning."  Still  they  come  not.  We 
may  have  the  word  "  Protestant"  over  our  doors,  as  the  first 
Church  of  Trinity  Parish,  in  New  York,  had  ,*  we  may 
stamp  it  on  our  Prayer  Book  ;  but  it  will  read  to  many  eyes 
nothing  but  **  Papist."  Our  clergy  may  one  and  all  say, 
as  solemnly  and  as  vehemently  as  the  calumniated  Monta- 
gue, '*  I  call  God  and  all  his  holy  angels  to  witness,  I  nor 
am,  nor  have  been,  nor  intend  to  be  hereafter,  either  Papist, 
or  Romish  Catholic,  a  Papist  of  State  or  of  Religion  ;  but 
a  priest,  a  member,  a  follower,  of  the  Church  and  Doctrine 
of  the  Church  of  England."!  Still,  and  on  our  oath,  we 
are  Protestants  in  vain.  We  are  believers  in  "  The  Holy 
Catholic  I  Church,"  and  therefore,  inevitably.  Catholics 
after  the  fashion  of  Rome  ;  though  Rome  be,  as  she  is,  the 
worst  enemy  of  true  Catholicity  it  ever  had  :  since,  but  for 
Rome,  Catholicity  would  have  come  down  to  us  pure.  So 
Catholic  and  Papist  are,  to  Puritan  eyes,  all  one  ;  and  he 
who  dares  to  say  this  is  a  profound  blunder,  and  that  a 
genuine  Puritan  is  nearer  a  Papist  than  a  genuine  Catho- 
lic, ''  is  condemned  already."^    He  is  consigned  to  the  pains 

^  Smith's  New-York,  4lo,  p.  190. 

t  Appeal,  pp.  110,  111,  edit.  1625. 

t  The  squeaniishness  of  some  about  the  word  "  Catholic,"  is  even 
ridiculous.  If  we  are  to  reject  so  good  a  word,  because  Papists  please  to 
appropriate  it,  we  must  give  up  "  Church,"  and  "  Bishop  ;"  and  say,  with 
an  old  version,  "  Thou  art  Peter,  and  upon  this  rock  will  I  build  my  con- 
gregation;" or,  as  one  wished  to  translate  1  Peter,  ii.  25,  "  the  Shepherd 
and  Presbyterian  of  our  souls." — To  all  such  over-sensitiveness  I  know 
no  better  reply  than  King  James's  to  Dr.  Rainolds,  at  Hampton  Court ; 
who  was  for  giving  up  this,  that,  and  the  other  thing,  simply  because  the 
Papists  had  the  same.  "  Doctor,"  said  the  king,  "  do  you  mean  to  go 
barefoot,  because  the  Papists  wear  shoes  and  stockings  ]" 

Upon  the  change  of"  congregation"  for"  church,"  there  are  some  in- 
teresting remarks  in  Skinner's  Truth  and  Order,  pp.  130,  131.  Swords' ed. 

§  Doubtless  that  was  one  ground  of  Bishop  Montague's  condemna- 
tion, for  he  said  so.     (Appeal,  p.  112.)     He  said,  too,  what  we  often  see 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  153 

and  penalties  of  an  uncharitableness,  bleak  as  the  shore, 
rocky  as  the  soil,  and  enduringr  as  the  granite  of  Plymouth.* 
The  writer  of  these  lines  will  undoubtedly  be  esteemed  an 
arch-heretic,  for  his  presumptuous  questioning  of  opinions, 
which  have  become  as  well-known  fixtures  as  the  hills  of 
New  England.  Had  he  lived  in  the  days  of  John  Endicott, 
he  could  hardly  have  hoped  for  so  soft  a  death,  as  being 
smothered  in  one  of  the  "  autumnal  mists"  of  the  imagina- 
tive Mr.  Bancroft.  He  would  have  been  driven  into  the 
wilderness  like  Upshal  and  Williams,  manacled  and  made  a 
menial  like  Gorton  and  his  associates,  or  left  to  swing  upon 
a  scaffold  with  Marmaduke  Stephenson  and  Mary  Dyar. 


LETTER  VIII 


I  HAVE  given,  in  my  former  letters,  what  my  readers 
may  consider  sufficient,  (to  use  one  of  our  German-English 
words,)  for  an  excursus  on  the  question,  Why  did  the  Puri- 
tans leave  Europe  ?  How  far  "  a  purely  religious  cause" 
influenced  them,  and  how  far  the  love  of  power,  notoriety, 

now,  that  the  lowest  churchmen,  when  they  turn,  make  the  worst  high 
churchmen,  and  are  most  apt  to  become  Papists  in  the  end. 

*  Such  outrageously  partial  judgment  was  severely  condemned,  by 
even  so  loose  a  moralist  as  Montaigne.  I  commend  his  counsel  to  those 
who  are  so  fond  of  proscribing  Churchmen  by  the  wholesale.  "  I  am  a 
mortal  enemy  to  this  vicious  form  of  censure  ;  He  is  of  the  League,  be- 
cause he  admires  the  Duke  of  Guise  ;  he  is  astonished  at  the  King  of 
Navarre's  valor  and  diligence,  and  therefore  he  is  a  Huguenot ;  he  finds 
such  and  such  faults  in  the  King's  manners  and  conduct,  and  therefore  he 
IS  seditious  in  his  heart." — Montaigne's  Essays,  book  iii.  chap.  10. 


154  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

or  trade,  of  an  enlargement  of  his  Majesty's  dominions,  or, 
as  Mr,  Bancroft  semi-poetically  has  it,  **  the  passion  for 
land,"*  was  mingled  up  with  such  a  cause,  qualified  or  su- 
perseded it,  authorities  enough  have  probably  been  furnished, 
for  those  who  are  willing  to  examine  both  sides  of  a  debated 
question.  If  any  of  them  can  arrive  at  the  comfortable 
conclusion  of  Mr.  Minot,  one  of  the  historians  of  Massa- 
chusetts, and  announce,  with  his  placid  assurance,  that  it 
was  not  "  derogatory  to  the  principles  of  their  emigration 
to  entertain  a  hope,  that  while  the  cause  of  religion  was 
served  with  so  much  hazard,  success  might  also  attend  an 
honest  attempt  at  husbandry  and  traffic,"!  1  will  not  wage 
war  with  their  reasoning,  nor  with  its  comforts,  but — leave 
them  alone  with  their  glory.  Some  might  hint,  to  be  sure, 
that  an  inference  like  Mr.  Minot's  is  slightly  tinctured  with 
the  doctrine  of  merit,  as  it  seems  to  intimate  that  the  Puri- 
tans deserved,  if  they  did  not  expect,  plentiful  gains  in  com- 
merce, through  their  toils  and  losses  for  religion.  If  it  do, 
that  would  not  frighten  me  ;  for  after  sundry  stares,  excla- 
mations, and  surprises,  it  has  at  length  been  ascertained, 
that  Puritanism  and  Popery  are  nearer  of  kin  than  the  theory 
and  practice  of  Calvinistic  toleration,  or  the  theory  and 
practice  of  Socinian  liberality.  The  one  takes  to  itself 
merit,  from  its  wearing  shirts  of  horse-hair ;  the  other,  from 
lavish  self-abuse  of  its  unfortunate  human  nature  : — the  one 
superstitiously  reverences  rites  and  ceremonies  ;  the  other, 
superstitiously  dreads  them  : — the  one  is  infallibly  right,  in 
abetting  the  supremacy  of  St.  Peter's  chair;  the  other,  the 
supremacy  of  the  congregational  platform  : — the  one  claims 

*  This  passion,  Roger  Williams  said,  was  "  one  of  the  gods  of  New 
England."  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  series,  i.  279. — Dissenters,  as  Mr. 
White  says,  have  complained  that  nonconformity  was  a  money-losing 
speculation.  He  shows  the  contrary. — White's  Letters  to  Towgood,  2d 
ed.  1745,  p.  10,  &c. 

t   Minot's  Mass.  i.  14,  15. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  I55 

distant  countries,  through  Father  Pope  ;  the  other,  through 
Father  Adam  :* — the  one  thinks  it  right  to  terrify  or  subju- 
gate heretics  by  the  penalties  of  the  sword ;  and  to  this,  the 
other,  though  usually  averse  to  responses,  accords  a  long 
and  loud  Amen. 

Specimens  of  this  last  point  of  consanguinity  it  is  now 
proposed  to  exhibit;  and  in  this  letter,  with  particular  re- 
ference to  the  treatment  manifested  by  Puritans,  towards 
those  from  whose  immediate  society  they  had  torn  them- 
selves— tncmhers  of  the  Church  of  England. 

In  order  to  arrive  at  that  just  point  of  observation,  and 
properly  attempered  sensibility,  which  will  enable  us  to  ap- 
preciate facts  under  this  head,  it  will  be  necessary,  as  a 
preliminary,  to  show  what  feelings  the  Puritans  prq/esscc? — 
may  I  not  say  actually  entertained  ? — toward  the  Church  of 
England,  how  they  practically  regarded  things,  which  to  her 
were  as  the  signet  on  her  right  hand,  the  ordinations  of  her 
ministers,  and  their  administration  of  sacraments. 

The  Rev.  Francis  Higginson,  one  of  the  earliest  Puritan 
ministers  of  Salem,  Mass.,  was  once  a  clergyman  of  the  Es- 
tablished Church,  at  Leicester  in  England.  He  left  Eng- 
land, because  too  much  respect  was  demanded  of  him  for 
its  Establishment ;  but  his  name  became  famous  for  the 
respect  it  afterwards  demanded  for  the  Establishment  of 
Massachusetts.  He  died  in  1630  ;  but  his  son  and  successor 
John,  who  as  one  of"  the  seven  pillars, "f  or  as  a  preacher, 
was  seventy-two  years  in  office,  and  who  lived  till  1708,  sup- 
ported Puritan  dignity  with  an  energy,  which  the  father 
thought  a  most   grievous   intolerance   in   an   ecclesiastical 

*  Hutch.  Colleet.  p.  27.     Reason  sixth  for  Emigration. 

t  "  The  idea  of"  seven  pillars"  to  a  congregation  seems  to  have  come 
from  Prov.  ix.  1.  A  text  of  Scripture  for  Congregationalism,  even  from 
the  Old  Testament ;  while  for  poor  Episcopacy,  there  was  none  even  in 
the  New  ! 


156  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

court  beyond  the  seas.*  The  defamers  of  his  clerical  voca- 
tion were  whipped  and  fined,  with  summary  justice,  and  he 
could  not  walk  to  his  meeting-house  without  a  sexton  parad- 
ed by  his  side — an  exaction  which  I  cannot  find  authorized 
by  Gibson's  ponderous  Codex,  or  alluded  to,  as  desirable, 
among  the  multitudinous  wants  enumerated  by  Stackhouse 
in  his  ''  Miseries  of  the  Clergy."! 

Such  was  the  disposition  of  the  Higginsons,  for  conces- 
sions to  their  Puritan  prejudices  ;  yet  the  father  of  the  race 
could  make  none  to  a  Church  in  which  he  had  been  reared 
and  tutored,  and  at  whose  altars  he  had  pronounced  the  most 
solemn  vows  of  fealty. |  Still,  when  embarked  on  board 
*'  the  good  and  strong  ship"  Talbot,  with  five  and  twenty 
cannon  to  support  his  new  pretensions,  and  "  all  manner  of 
munition  and  provision  for  the  plantation  for  a  twelve- 
month,"§  he  could  not  abandon  Britain  rudely. ||  As  he  saw 
the  white  cliffs  of  that  father-land  sinking  beneath  the  hori- 
zon, (to  him  forever,)  his  natural  feelings,  with  perhaps 
some  qualms  of  compunction,  rose  within  his  bosom.  He 
called,  (so  says  Mr.  Noah  Hobart,  in  addressing  "  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Episcopal  Separation,")  he  called  '*  his  children 
and  the  other  passengers']  to  the  stern  of  the  ship,  to  take 
their  last  sight  of  their  native  country,  and  made  this  speech 
to  them ;  '  We  will  not  say,  as  the  Separatists  were  wont  to 

*  John  boasted  that  he  was  "  acknowledged  to  be  a  member  of  the 
purest  church  in  Salem." — Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  series,  vii.  222. — So  the 
Puritans  could  depreciate  the  purity  of  one  another,  to  exalt  their  own. 

t  Felt's  Annals  of  Salem,  pp.  236,  243,  246. 

t  "  At  first  he  was  a  strict  Episcopalian."  Felt's  Salem,  p.  42. — 
Magnalia,  i.  323. 

§  The  fleet  had  80  guns,  with  stores  of  arms  and  powder,  drums  and 
colors,  <Scc.  (Sec.     Oldmixon,  i.  58. 

II  Hutchinson's  Collect,  p.  32. 

II  The  ship  had  about  a  hundred  planters  on  board.  The  authority 
does  not  say  how  many  women  and  children.  Hutchinson's  Collect, 
p.  32. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  J57 

say,  at  their  leaving  England,  Farewell  Babylon  !  Farewell 
Rome  !  But  we  will  say,  Farewell  dear  England  !  Farewell 
the  Church  of  God  in  England,  and  all  the  Christian  friends 
there !  We  do  not  go  to  New  England,  as  Separatists  from 
the  Church  of  England,  though  we  cannot  but  separate 
from  the  corruptions  of  it;  but  we  go  to  practice  the  posi- 
tive part  of  Church  Reformation  in  America."*  Hobart 
does  not  quote  this  sentence  from  Cotton  Mather  with  pre- 
cision ;  neither  does  Mr.  Allen,  in  his  Biographical  Dic- 
tionary. Hobart  says  not  a  word  about  "  the  propagation 
of  the  Gospel,"  which  was  another  of  the  objects  named  ; 
and  he  takes  good  care  to  forget,  as  Mr.  Felt  does,t  that 
"  he  concluded  with  a  fervent  prayer  for  the  king,  and 
church,  and  state  in  England."! 

This  was  in  April,  1629.  A  year  afterward,  there  was 
another  embarkation.  On  the  eve  of  sailing,  a  large  party 
addressed  a  most  singular  letter  §  "to  the  rest  of  their 
brethren  in  and  of  the  Church  of  England."  They  took 
care  to  have  it  published  "  a  few  days  after  their  embarka- 
tion." ||  It  is  too  long  for  entire  quotation,  and  so  I  content 
myself  with  one  of  its  most  striking  passages.  In  modern 
orthography,  it  runs  as  follows  : 

*'  We  desire  you  would  be  pleased  to  take  notice  of  the 
principals  and  body  of  our  company,  as  those  who  esteem  it 
our  honor  to  call  the  Church  of  England,  from  whence 
we  rise,  our  dear  mother  ;  and  cannot  part  from  our  na- 
tive country,  where  she  specially  resideth,  without  much 
sadness  of  heart,  and  many  tears  in  our  eyes ;   ever  acknow- 

*  N.  Hobart's  Sec.  Address,  pp.  90,  91.       t  Annals  of  Salem,  p.  44. 

X  Magnalia,  i.  328. 

§  The  Massachusetts  Company  held  their  last  meeting  on  board  the 
fleet,  and  issued  this  letter  for  the  Puritans,  "  for  the  preventing  of  mis- 
constructions." The  Puritans,  meanwhile,  were  secretly  carrying  off  the 
Charter ! — Chalmers'  Rev.  of  the  Col.  i.  44. 

II  Neal's  New  England,  i.  1 32. 


158  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

ledging,  that  such  hope  and  part  as  we  have  obtained  in  the 
common  salvation,  we  have  received  in  her  bosom,  and 
sucked  it  from  her  breasts.  We  leave  it  not,  therefore,  as 
loathing  that  milk  wherewith  we  were  nourished  there,  but, 
blessing  God  for  the  parentage  and  education,  as  members 
of  the  same  body,  shall  always  rejoice  in  her  good,  and  un- 
fei^nedly  grieve  for  any  sorrow  that  shall  ever  betide  her ; 
and  while  we  have  breath  sincerely  desire  and  endeavor  the 
continuance  and  abundance  of  her  welfare,  with  the  enlarge- 
ment of  her  bounds  in  the  kingdom  of  Christ  Jesus." 
Further  on  the  letter  entreats  that  they  may  not  be  despised 
nor  deserted  "  in  their  prayers  and  affections."* 

This  letter  is  dated,  April  7,  1630,  from  Yarmouth, 
aboard  the  Arabella,  or  Arbella,  and  forms  No.  I.  of  the 
appendix,  of  the  first  volume,  of  Hutchinson's  History  of 
Massachusetts.  No  wonder  Cotton  Mather  should  say  of 
it,  when  attempting  its  elaborate  defence,  "  if  it  now  puzzle 
the  reader,  to  reconcile  these  passages  with  the  principles 
declared,  the  practices  followed,  and  the  persecutions  un- 
dergone, [inflicted,  rather,]  by  these  American  Reform- 
ers."! Gov.  Hutchinson's  historical  comment  is,  "  This 
paper  has  occasioned  a  dispute,  whether  the  first  settlers  of 
Massachusetts  were  of  the  Church  of  England  or  not."J 
And  he  pithily,  and  with  not  too  much  causticity,  adds, 
"  However  problematical  it  may  be,  what  they  were  while 
they  remained  in  England,  they  left  no  room  for  doubt  after 
they  arrived  in  America."'^ 

Yes,  they  left  "  no  room  for  doubt,"  indeed,  respecting 
their  views  of  Episcopacy,  &c. ;  in  spite  of  cautious  letters 
from  their  friends  at  home,  "  to  guard  against  what  they 
deemed  too  great  a  deviation  from  the  Episcopal  Establish- 

'^  Sec  Note  79. 

*  Hubbard's  New  England,  pp.  126, 127.  t  Magnalia,  i.  69 

t  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  24. 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS.  159 

ment."*  Hubbard,  however,  one  of  the  Puritan  historians, 
represents  them  as,  notwithstanding,  quite  afloat  at  first, 
respecting  the  subject  of  an  ecclesiastical  platform  for  them- 
selves. They  came  to  practice,  "  the  positive  part  of 
Church  Reformation ;"  when,  really,  they  had  no  clear 
mind  at  all  about  the  matter  they  thought  it  so  necessary  to 
forsake  their  native  land  to  exemplify.  "  It  doth  not  ap- 
pear," he  says,  "  that  these  were  like  those  of  New  Plymouth, 
aforehand  moulded  into  any  order  or  form  of  Church  gov- 
ernment." They  were  not,  he  adds,  "  precisely  fixed  upon 
any  particular  order,  or  form  of  government ;  but,  like  rasa 
tabula,  fit  to  receive  any  impression  that  could  be  delineated 
out  of  the  word  of  God,  or  vouched  to  be  according  to  the 
pattern  in  the  mount,  as  they  judged. "t  They  knew 
enough  to  dislike  *'  some  things  in  the  discipline  and  cere- 
monies of  the  Church  of  England,"  and  also  "  that  pattern 
of  separation  set  up  before  them  in  Plymouth;"  (alas,  even 
Mr.  Young's  pilgrims  pronounced  separatists!)  but  where 
the  truth  lay,  they  no  more  knew,  than  they  did  the  secrets 
of  the  wilderness  they  were  entering. | 

Nor  did  they  know,  "  as  they  judged,"  for  years,  as  he 
further  informs  us;  "until  Mr.  Cotton  and  Mr.  Hooker 
cam.e  over."§  Then,  light  at  last  shone  upon  that  dark  sub- 
ject, which  they  had  chased  the  sun  three  thousand  miles  to 
have  illuminated.  Mr.  Cotton  settled  all  matters  of  ob- 
scurity, as  soon  and  as  effectually,  as  the  Coryphaeus  of  all 
infallibles  at  Rome.  Under  Mr.  Cotton's  magic  touch,  who 
knew^  so  much  about  "  bloody  tenets,"  and  the  "■  power  of 
the  keys,"  the  clouded  jasper  of  yesterday  becomes  to-day 
pellucid  gold.     "  And  such  was  the  authority  they   (espe- 

*  Felt's  Salem,  p.  15.  t  New  England,  p.  117. 

I  Their  pattern  may  be  found  in  Acts  xix.  32. — Congregational  so- 
cieties are  said  to  be  as  old  as  apostolic  times.  If  so,  this  must  have  been 
the  first. 

§  New  England,  p.  182. 


1(30  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

cially  Mr.  Cotton)  had  iii  the  hearts  of  the  people,  that 
whatever  he  delivered  in  the  pulpit,  was  soon  put  into  an 
order  of  court,  if  of  a  civil,  or  set  up  as  a  practice  in  the 
church,  if  of  an  ecclesiastical  concernment."*  This  is  not 
a  very  amiable  picture  of  discernment,  stability,  or  inde- 
pendence, as  to  either  church  or  state  matters,  in  those 
who  thought  the  majority  of  England,  "  as  they  judged," 
so  ignorant,  or  so  dogmatical,  that  they  must  bid  them  an 
everalsting  farewell,  and  set  them  a  "positive"  example  of 
genuine  "  reformation."  Still,  as  it  is  a  picture  which  they 
have  sat  for,  before  one  of  their  self-chosen  painters,  we 
must  fain  believe  it  a  correct  one,  and  give  it,  according  to 
the  law  of  Pope  Pius's  creed,  "  due  honor  and  veneration." 

Well,  let  these  things  pass  for  professions,  and  especially 
intelligent  professions,  as  to  their  feelings  towards  the 
Church  of  England  generally.  Come  we  now  to  that  deli- 
cate and  sensitive  subject,  that  subject  which  the  descend- 
ants of  the  Puritans  talk  of,  as  if  one  of  the  veriest  trifles, 
and  act  about,  as  if  one  of  the  deepest  grievances,  when 
Churchmen  make  it  an  affair  of  conscience — I  mean  the 
subject  of  ORDINATION. 

What  opinion  did  the  Puritans  entertain  of  the  ordina- 
tions of  their  Anglican  *'  mother,"  who  was  so  "  dear,"  that 
they  absolutely  dreaded  the  mere  thought,  of  being  deserted 
in  her  "  prayers  and  affections"  ?  President  Stiles,  in  his 
famous  Election  sermon  in  1783,  which  contains,  says  his 
biographer.  Dr.  Holmes,  "  a  fund  of  political,  scientific  and 
theological  truth,"!  contended  that  the  orders  of  Congrega- 
tional ministers  are,  ipso  facto,  the  same  with  those  of  min- 

*  New  England,  p.  182. — For  want  of  room,  and  their  length,  I  can- 
not quote,  for  the  amusement  and  instruction  of  my  readers,  the  very 
caustic  comments  of  a  Presbyterian  on  Master  Cotton's  erratic  course. — 
See  Baillie's  Dissuasive,  pp.  55-59. 

t  Holmes'  Life  of  Stiles,  p.  286. — An  English  editor  called  it,  wag- 
gishly, "The  new  American  Encyclopedia." 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  161 

isters  of  the  Church  of  England.  The  first  Congregational 
ministers  of  this  country,  he  says,  were  ministers  of  the 
Church  of  England,  and  as  presbyters  can  ordain  presbyters, 
the  Congregationalists  have  "  the  succession,"  as  well,  and 
as  effectually,  as  Churchmen.  His  argument  however  must 
claudicate  a  little,  even  if  we  grant  that  a  presbyter  may  be 
a  sufficient  ordainer;  for  it  so  happens  that  "  the  brethren," 
in  no  orders  at  all,  unless  it  be  the  order  of  "  the  seven 
pillars,"  took  a  principal,  if  not  a  sole  part,  in  Congrega- 
tional ordinations. 

"  Where,"  says  Mr.  Hubbard,  "  there  is  not  a  Presby- 
tery pre-existing,  either  some  of  the  brethren  ordain,  as  is 
above  described,"  &:,c.*  He  was  describing  the  ordination, 
or  rather  re-ordination  of  Mr.  Cotton,  to  which  allusion  will 
be  made  before  this  letter  is  finished.  It  is  important,  how- 
ever, to  remark,  that  Mr.  Hubbard  also  says,  in  narrating 
the  re-ordination  of  Mr.  Cotton,  "  These  circumstances  and 
order  of  procedure  are  more  particularly  set  down,  because, 
EVER  SINCE  that  time,  they  generally  proceed  after  the  same 
manner,  in  the  ordination  of  their  ministers  in  the  Congre- 
gational churches  in  New  England."!  Mr.  Noah  Hobart, 
who  was  a  high-church  Congregationalist,|  like  President 
Stiles  and  others,  stiffly  denies  this  position  of  brother  Hub- 
bard, when  holding  a  controversy  with  Mr.  Beach  the  Epis- 
copalian, and  formerly  Rector  of  Trinity  Church,  Newtown, 
Connecticut.  He  affirms  that  these  ordinations  were  instal- 
lations, (do  Congregationalists  ever  lay  on  hands  at  an 
installation?)  and  that  they  were  never  performed  by  the 
brethren  at  all,  ''a  very  few  instances  excepted."  Indeed, 
he  is  so  provoked  with  Mr.  Beach,  for  presuming  to  contra- 
vene his  opinions,  that  he  calls  him  "  a  New  Light  Sepa- 


*  New  England,  p.  189.  t  Ibid.  p.  189. 

t  Hobart,  e.  g.  does  not  admit  the  truth  of  the   Nag's  Head  fable. 
Second  Address,  Boston,  1751,  p.  74. 


162  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

ratist  :* — a  Churchman  denounced  as  a  new  light  and  a 
separatist  by  Puritans  ! !  a  compliment  for  standing  reference, 
when  they  wince  under  our  milder  appellation  of"  Dissent- 
ers."! Now  Mr.  Hubbard,  it  will  be  perceived,  says  dis- 
tinctly, that  ever  since  Mr.  Cotton's  day,  which  was  in  1633, 
down  to  his  own,  (he  died  in  1704,)  they  generally  proceed- 
ed as  in  Mr.  Cotton's  case ;  and  that  he  was  very  particular 
about  that  case,  for  that  very  reason.  Mr.  Hobart  died  in 
1773.  Could  the  practice  have  changed  so  vastly,  as  Mr. 
Hobart,  with  his  high-church  notions  about  succession  and 
ordination,  was  inclined  to  represent  it,  in  seventy  years, 
and  especially,  when  for  some  seventy  years  previously,  it 
had  pursued  one  general  steady  course  ?  I  leave  my  read- 
ers to  judge  in  such  an  issue,  whether  to  believe  Mr.  Hobart 
in  a  piece  of  controversy,  or  Mr.  Hubbard  in  a  portion  of 
history — and  that  too  when  Mr.  Allen  in  his  Biog.  Diet, 
(p.  474,)  does  not  hesitate  to  admit,  that  ancient  and 
modern  writers,  such  even  as  Mather  in  his  Magnalia, 
Hutchinson  in  his  History,  and  Holmes  in  his  Annals,  have 
all  referred  to  Hubbard  for  their  materials.^"  f 

But  I  have  not  done  with  this  case  of  re-ordinations. 
There  is  evidence  to  prove  the  theological  theory  on  which 
the  Puritans  acted  in  it,  and  which,  as  it  appears  to  me, 
must  blow  Mr.  Hobart's  plea  about  installations  to  the 
winds,  and  set  the  subject  at  rest  forever. 

^  See  Note  60. 

*  Congregationalists,  &c.  wince,  as  1  say  further  on.  But  it  was 
once  their  habit  lo  call  Episcopalians  "  New  England  Dissenters."  See 
Reply  to  Eleutherius  Enervatus,  p.  16,  Boston,  1733.  And  here  is  ^Mr. 
Hobart  calling  them,  Separatists  and  New  Lights  ! !  And  that  is  not 
the  worst  of  it.  As  far  back  as  1654,  in  Johnson's  celebrated  tract,  I 
find  Churchmen  numbered  among  the  Sectaries. — Mass.  H.  Coll.  2d  Ser. 
ii.  58. — Be  no  longer  testy,  0  Puritan,  under  the  milder  terra  Dissenter. 

t  See  Hobarfs  Sec.  Address,  pp.  90-99. 

X  Mr.  Bacon  seems  to  admit  the  early  ordinations,  as  lay  ordinations  , 
with  tolerable  composure.     Hist.  Disc.  pp.  293-295. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  163 

I  find  that  evidence  in  the  Annals  of  Salem,  by  Mr. 
Felt,  pp.  104,  105.  So  early,  it  appears,  as  1637,  the  proper 
ground  or  theory  to  be  assumed  about  ordinations  per- 
formed by  a  bishop,  became  a  solemn  and  anxious  subject 
of  discussion,  before  an  ordaining  council  in  the  town  of 
Concord  in  Massachusetts.  And  what  was  the  Puritan  ad- 
judication on  the  matter?  I  give  it  in  Mr.  Felt's  own 
words,  that  there  may  be  no  possible  misrepresentation 
on  my  part.  It  was  this :  "  Such  as  were  clergymen  in 
England,  by  the  call  of  their  people,  were  to  be  respected 
as  having  there  legally  sustained  the  office  of  ministers. 
But  for  accepting  the  call  of  a  bishop,  they  ought  to  hum- 
ble themselves  and  repent.  Having  come  to  this  country, 
they  should  not  consider  themselves  as  regular  ministers, 
until  called  by  another  church.  When  thus  elected,  they 
were  to  be  accounted  as  ministers,  even  before  ordination. "^^ 

This  is  the  canonical  clue,  and  a  precise  one,  to  lead 
us  straight  up  to  the  true  solution  of  every  case.  It  shows, 
at  once,  when,  and  why,  and  how.  Episcopal  clergymen, 
coming  from  England,  were  to  be  received  in  a  clerical 
character  ;  the  reason  for  a  favorable  reception,  or  other- 
wise, in  any  given  instance  ;  and  the  proper  manner  of 
proceeding  with  it.  But  it  also  shows,  incontestably  and 
most  notoriously,  that  ordination  by  a  bishop,  that  what 
Churchmen  would  call  ordination,  and  what  only  they  would 
call  ordination,  was  worth,  in  a  Puritan's  eye,  just,  aye,  lit- 
erally just  nothing.*  Nay,  such  an  ordination  was  a  thing 
to  be  humbled  under,  and  repented  of,  as  a  transgression 

8»  See  Note  81. 

*  Episcopal  ordination  had  to  be  renounced,  before  an  English  cler- 
gyman could  be  so  much  as  a  private  member  of  a  Puritan  congregation 
in  Holland  ;  i.  e.  the  congregation  of  Hugh  Peters,  who  afterwards  went 
to  New  England.  So  a  Freshjterian  tells  us.  Doubtless,  the  theory  of 
Peters  became  law  in  New  England  ;  if  not  there  already,  when  he  ar- 
rived in  1635.     See  Baillie's  Dissuasive,  p.  75 


1G4  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

against  God.     It  should  bow  us  to  the  dust.     We  must  be 
absolved  from  it  as  a  crime.* 

Be  this,  then,  never  forgotten,  in  all  our  difficulties  with 
Congregationalists,  when  they  upbraid  us    for   illiberality, 
bigotry,  anti-Christian   hostility,  because  we  will  not  make 
the  laws  of  Christ,  respecting  the  polity  of  his  Church,  bend 
to  their  convenience — be  this,  I  say,  never   forgotten,  that 
the  day  has  been,  when  they  repudiated  Episcopal  ordina- 
tion, not   as   a  nullity   merely,   but   as  a  grievous  offence 
against  God — a  thing  to  be  recanted  like  a  falsehood  t — a 
thing  for  which  a  man  should  bow  down  his  head  as  a  bul- 
rush, and  cry  with  the  Publican,  "  God  be  merciful  to  me 
a  sinner!"     And  if  their  theory  was  ever  good  for  any  thing, 
and  is  good  for  any  thing  still,  many  and  many  an  Episcopal 
clergyman  has  yet  to  be  humbled  and  penitent  for  an  ordi- 
nation, for  which  the  Church  has  taught  her  children  to  say, 
*'  that  thou  hast  vouchsafed  to  call  these  thy  servants  to  the 
office  and  ministry,  appointed  for  the  salvation  of  mankind, 
we  render  unto  thee  most  hearty  thanks."     For  many  and 
many  an  Episcopal   clergyman   is  not  a  parish  minister  at 
all ;   and  many,  if  not  all,  of  those  who  are  parish  ministers, 
(as  in  this  State  of  New  York,  e.  g.,)  are  such  by  an  elec- 
tion of  vestrymen,  and  not  by  the  vote  of  the  congregation. 
Nay,  if  Puritan  theory,  consecrated  in  a  Platform,  was 
ever  good  for  any  thing,  and  is  still  of  any  value,  the  posses- 
sion of  the  ministerial  office  apart  from  a  congregation,  is 
utterly  impossible,  and  a  man   should   be  ordained  twenty 
times  over,  if  he   have  as  many  different  parishes,  in  this 

*  And  yet,  says  Hubbard,  "  nor  did  they  ever  disown  the  Church  of 
England  to  be  a  true  church." — (Hubbard's  New  England,  p.  181.)  A 
true  church  without  ordination  !  No  wonder  the  Congregationalists  cling 
to  such  an  idea  ! 

t  "  A  minister  standing  upon  his  ministry,  as  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, was  compelled  to  recant  some  words." — (Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  Ser. 
iii.  81.  — That  is,  no  doubt, compelled  to  recant  his  Episcopal  ordination. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  165 

changeful  age.  The  Cambridge  Platform  (ch,  ix.,  sect.  7) 
distinctly  says,  "  He  that  is  clearly  loosed  from  his  office 
relation  unto  that  church  whereof  he  was  a  minister,  can- 
not be  looked  at  as  an  officer,  nor  perform  any  act  of  office 
in  any  other  church,  unless  he  be  again  orderly  called  unto 
office;  which,  when  it  shall  be,  we  know  nothing  to  hin- 
der, but  imposition  of  hands  also,  in  ordination,  ought  to  be 
used  towards  him  again.  For  so  Paul  the  apostle  received 
imposition  of  hands  twice  at  least,  from  Ananias.  (Acts  ix. 
17,  and  xiii."*)  It  is  somewhat  amusing  to  find  Paul  or- 
dained by  Ananias,t  even  before  his  baptism,  as  in  the  first 
instance,  and  without  even  the  presence  of  his  ordainer,  as 
in  the  second,  and  in  both  instances  without  a  congrega- 
tion ;  and  yet  Ananias  is  all  the  while  an  excellent  Con- 
gregationalist !  But  we  must  let  such  dainties  pass,  to  go 
on  with  the  argument. 

No  man  is  a  minister,  then,  on  the  Puritan  theory,  who 
has  not  been  called  by  a  congregation,  and  is  so  no  longer 
than  such  call  subsists. |  And  if  so  called,  he  is  a  minis- 
ter, whether  or  not  a  bishop,  a  presbytery,  or  the  "  seven 
pillars,"  or  "  the  gifted  brethren,"  do,  or  do  not,  lay  hands 
on  him.  This  ceremony  of  ordination  and  imposition  of 
hands  is  a  mere  circumstance,  decent  and  pretty  enough, 
but  by  no  means  essential,  nor  derogated  in  any  degree 
whatever,  if  repeated  a  dozen  times  over.§  And  what  is 
most  singular,  Socinians  believe  this,  and  practice  on  it, 
at  this  very  day,  with  more  strictness  than   do  Calvinists ! 

*  Compare  Hooker's  Survey,  Pt.  ii.  p.  61,  etc. 

t  Moreover,  the  Apost.  Constitutions  make  Ananias  a  layman  ;  but 
that,  I  suppose,  is  quite  as  it  should  be. 

X  Camfield's  Exam,  of  the  Independents' Catechism.  London,  1668, 
pp.  226,235. 

§  Camb.  Platform.  See  the  whole  of  Chap.  IX. — Once,  however, 
they  thought  better,  and  said  (Presbyterians  attesting)  "  ordination  is  ne- 
cessary by  Divine  Institution."  Jus  Divinum  Min.  Evangel,  ed.  1654, 
p.  157. 

8* 


ICO  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

What !  Sociiiians  stricter  Congregationalists  than  their  Cal- 
vinistic  brethren — I  should  say,  namesakes?  I  do  mean 
even  and  literally  so.  The  inconsistency  of  the  principles 
of  the  old  Platform,  with  the  ordination  of  an  "  Evange- 
list," (as  he  is  called,)  by  a  Presbytery,  Consociation,  or 
Association,  or  Representative  Council,  is  at  once  manifest, 
i.  c,  if  they  act  in  their  own  name,  and  notybr  some  specific 
congregation,  and  at  their  express  request ;  for  then,  upon 
the  principle,  qui  facit  per  alium,  Sfc,  the  congregation  in 
question  act.  Now  the  Socinians  are  shrewd  enough  to 
perceive  this.  They  govern  themselves  accordingly.  When 
I  formerly  lived  in  Massachusetts,  I  knew  the  late  Hollis 
professor  of  divinity  in  Harvard  University  refuse  to  act  in 
ordaining  a  young  gentleman  an  Evangelist,  for  a  congre- 
gation in  Meadville,  Pennsylvania,  until  he  knew  that  the 
congregation  had,  by  vote,  constituted  him  their  minister. 
Then,  of  course,  it  was  very  safe  to  make  a  man  a  minister, 
who  was  one  already  '.^^ 

But  I  cannot  dilate  longer  upon  the  Congregational  the- 
ory of  ordinations,  and  tlie  view  which,  upon  such  theory, 
must  be  taken  of  ordinations  by  a  bishop  only — ordinations 
in  which  the  people  are  not  allowed  to  mingle  at  all,  unless 
their  approbation  of  a  candidate  by  a  standing  committee  be 
considered  an  election  of  him  by  the  laity;  and  if  so,  he 
would  be  a  minister  before  he  so  much  as  reached  a  bish- 
op's hands — two  or  three  laymen  being,  I  believe,  the  ca- 
nonical number  for  constituting  a  *'  Congregational  church." 
Let  us  come  now  to  facts,  to  see  how  the  theory  in  question 
was  carried  into  effect.* 

On  Friday,  August  27,  1630,  Mr.  Wilson,  who  had  been 

*^2  See  Note  82. 

*  Hutchinson  declares  that  re-ordination  of  Episcopalians  was  a  Pu- 
ritan practice  in  England,  as  well  as  out  of  it.  (Hist.  Mass.  i.  369.)  So 
here  is  proof  upon  proof,  of  their  utter  disregard  of  Episcopal  orders. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  107 

ordained  by  a  bishop,  and  Mr.  Nowell,  who  had  not,  were 
admitted  to  orders  in  the  Congregational  establishment  of 
Massachusetts,  by  the  pro  hac  vice  ordaining  laity.  True, 
Mr.  Winthrop,  who  was  one  of  them,  declares,  "  We  used 
imposition  of  hands,  but  with  this  protestation  by  all,  that 
it  was  only  as  a  sign  of  election  and  confirmation,  not  of  any 
intent  that  Mr.  Wilson  should  renounce  his  ministry  he  re- 
ceived in  England."*  And  to  this  it  would  be  an  abundant 
reply  to  say,  they  were  as  yet  rasa  tabula,  as  Mr.  Hubbard 
calls  them,  on  which  the  explicit  dogma  of  1637,  when 
Master  Cotton  had  signed  the  writing  and  the  decree,  had 
not  yet  been  inscribed.  But  there  is  an  answer  nearer  home. 
An  unfortunate  emendation  hangs  about  this  passage,  which 
alloys  its  apparently  weighty  testimony.  It  has  undergone 
the  retouchings  of  an  antiquarian ;  and  how  much  of  tare 
and  trett  there  may  be  in  it,  as  there  sometimes  is,  accord- 
ing to  the  learned  Thomas  James,f  in  a  retouched  sentence 
of  the  Christian  Fathers,  one  cannot  undertake  to  say. 
The  word  ministry,  which  has  been  italicized,  so  as  to  draw 
attention  towards  it,  is  not  contained  in  the  Hartford  edi- 
tion of  1790,  of  Winthrop's  Journal.  On  the  contrary,  that 
which,  whether  as  a  word,  or  something  more  substantial, 
was  so  often  hovering  around  the  day,  if  not  the  night 
dreams  of  the  early  settlers  of  Massachusetts,  occupies  its 
place.  In  that  edition  the  sentence  reads,  ''  not  of  any  in- 
tent that  Mr.  Wilson  should  renounce  his  money  .'"|  This 
reading  is  not  adopted,  indeed,  by  the  careful  Mr.  Savage; 
but  still  he  by  no  means  discards  it  from  his  margin.    And 


*  Savage's  Wint.  i.  32,  33. 

t  A  Treatise  of  the  Corruptions  of  Scripture,  Councils,  and  Fathers, 
by  the  prelates,  pastors,  and  pillars  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  for  the  main- 
tenance of  Popery.  By  Thomas  James,  &c.  New  edit,  by  Rev.  J.  E. 
Cox.     London,  1843. 

X  Hartford  edit.  p.  20. 


168  REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS. 

there  are  several  reasons  why  we  may  suspect  the  old  read- 
ing to  be  the  true  one,  which  T  will  now  proceed  to  give. 

The  Puritans  had  just  been  professing  as  much  affec- 
tion and  deference  for  the  Church  of  England,  as  could 
have  been  expected  from  her  most  loyal  sons.  They  had 
incurred  the  suspicion  of  being  covert  Churchmen.  They 
never  had  the  reputation  of  doing  avoidable  acts,  which 
would  entail  upon  them  the  loss  of  property.  For,  as  Hurd 
testifies  of  the  Puritans  of  this  very  era,  "  The  Independ- 
ents were  more  favored  than  the  Presbyterians ;  and  as  they 
had  no  objection  against  money,  they  accepted  of  the  grand 
church  livings,  while  at  the  same  time  they  were  exclaiming 
against  clerical  power."*  Moreover,  Mr.  Wilson  made  two 
visits  to  England  on  account  of  money.  One  is  mentioned 
by  Hubbard  ;f  the  other  by  Mather,  who  says  he  brought 
back  with  him  a  thousand  pounds^:  for  New  England's  ben- 
efit.§  His  eldest  son  could  travel  on  the  continent  of 
Europe,  and  take  a  doctor's  degree  in  physic  in  Italy — 
a  thing  not  to  be  done  by  a  poor  man's  son.jl  Put  all 
these  things  together,  and  then  consider  whether  it  is  not 
quite  reasonable  to  imagine,  that,  under  the  circum- 
stances of  Mr.  Wilson's  ordination,  and  the  feelings  with 
which  it  was  performed,  the  Puritans  would  not  venture 
something,  which,  if  that  ordination  were  construed  into  an 
act  of  insubordination  towards  their  "  dear  mother,"  would 
prevent,  if  possible,  its  being  so  construed,  as  to  lose  them 
any  of  that  mother's  silvered  smiles? 

Perhaps  it  is  quite  unnecessary  to  argue  this  case  any 
longer.  It  may  be  somewhat  amusing  to  my  readers, 
however,  to  see  how  the  candid  Mr.  Neal  contrives  to  blink 

*  Religious  Ceremonies,  p.  586.  t  New  England,  p.  140. 

X  These  thousand  pounds  were  spent  in  purchasing  cannon  ! !  The 
Puritans  had  full  faith  in  "  infallible  artillery." — See  Mass.  Hist.  Coll. 
2d  series,  ii.  59. 

§  Magnalia,  i.  281,  282.  ||  Ibid.  i.  283. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  1(30 

the  agency  of  the  brethren  in  Mr.  Wilson's  case,  though  he 
tells  half  the  truth,  viz.  that  Wilson  was  re-ordained.  He 
says  that  Mr.  W.,  *'  though  an  ordained  minister  of  the 
Church  of  England,  submitted  to  a  re-ordination  by  such 
hands,  as  the  church  invited  to  pray  for  a  blessing  on  his  la- 
bors."* 

Let  us  now  take  up  another  case.  In  the  year  1633, 
Mr.  Thomas  Hooker,  also  a  presbyter  of  the  Church  of 
England,  came  over,  and  joined  the  Massachusetts  Puritans. 
But  on  the  11th  of  October  in  the  same  year,  he  was,  ac- 
cording to  President  Stiles,  in  his  Election  Sermon,  (p.  103, 
2d  edit.)  ordained  "  then  again  by  the  brethren  at  New- 
town," alias  Cambridge.  Dr.  Holmes  endorses  this,  in  his 
history  of  Cambridge,  (p.  39,)  and  Allen,  in  his  Biographi- 
cal Dictionary,  p.  464. 

In  the  same  year  came  over  Master  Cotton  himself,  who 
was  the  Cardinal  Bellarmine  of  Massachusetts,  in  enforcing 
the  power  of  the  Congregational  keys,  and  the  "  bloody 
tenets"  of  its  virtual  Inquisition.  Master  Cotton  had  been 
long  a  preacher  in  the  Establishment,  and  became  a  convert 
of  the  Puritans.  He  "  was  now  a  Christian  minister,"  says 
Mr.  Allen,  in  his  Dictionary. t  Nevertheless  even  he  had 
to  receive  orders  from  the  fountain-head  ;  and  was  accord- 
ingly re-ordained  at  Boston.  The  ceremony  was  performed 
by  the  laically  ordained  Mr.  Wilson  and  his  two  elders. 
The  scene  was  made  as  imposing  as  it  well  could  be.  The 
congregation  were  called  on  to  testify  their  consent.  They 
did  not  do  it,  as  in  the  Church  of  England,  by  reverend  si- 
lence, but  by  lifting  up  their  hands  as  they  would  do  to  elect 
a  constable.  Mr.  Wilson  then  demanded  of  Mr.  Cotton,  if 
he  accepted  the  election  thus  pronounced,  W^ith  an  em- 
phatic pause,  and  expressions  of  great  humility,  he  assent- 
ed.    "Then,"  says  the  historian,  "  the  pastor  and  the  two 

*  Neal's  New  England,  i.  133.  t  Page  307,  col.  a. 


170  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

ruling  elders,  laying  their  hands  upon  his  head,  the  pas- 
tor prayed,  and  speaking  to  him  by  his  name,  did  thereby 
design  him  to  the  said  office,*  in  the  name  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  and  did  give  him  the  charge  of  the  congregation, 
and  did  thereby,  as  by  a  sign  from  God,  endue  him,  at  least 
prayed  that  he  might  be  endued,  with  gifts  fit  for  his  office, 
and  largely  did  bless  him."t 

Upon  this  case,  so  striking  and  peculiar,  I  cannot  but 
pause  for  two  or  three  observations.  One  is,  that  while  it 
is,  in  a  Puritan  vocabulary.  Popish  and  impious  for  a  conse- 
crated bishop  to  say,  at  an  ordination,  "Receive  the  Holy 
Ghost,  for  the  office  and  w^ork  of  a  priest  in  the  Church  of 
God,"  it  is  perfectly  lawful,  Protestant,  and  righteous,  for  a 
Puritan  presbyter,  with  two  laymen,  to  say,  "  John  Cotton, 
we  do  hereby  design  thee  to  the  said  office,  in  the  name  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  and  do  give  thee  the  charge  of  this  con- 
gregation, and  do  hereby,  as  by  a  sign  from  God,  endue  thee 
with  gifts  fit  for  thy  office,  and  do  largely  bless  thee."  It 
matters  not  that  Hubbard  faltered  a  little,  in  his  later  day, 
and  said,  "  at  least  prayed  that  he  might  be  endued,"  (Sec. 
Mr.  Hubbard's  private  judgment  is  nothing  to  us,  inquiring 
into  public  facts.  The  good  old  fashion  was,  to  design  a 
candidate  for  ordination  in  the  name  of  the  Third  Person  in 
the  Sacred  Trinity,  and,  in  that  awful  name,  to  blaspheme 
which  is  the  soul's  perdition,  to  endue  him  with  the  gifts 
his  office  might  require.  Moreover,  grievous  as  outward 
signs  are,  when  they  assume  the  shape  of  that  blessed  Cross, 
on  which  the  redemption  of  a  world  was  *'  finished,"  yet 
there  are  such  things  as  outward  signs,  not  positively  com- 
manded,   (for  where  is  it  made  an  essential  of  ordination 

*  He  was  already  a  presbyter  of  the  Church  of  England,  now  to  be 
promoted  to  the  office  of  teacher  in  the  Establishment  of  New  England. 
The  Puritans  thought  three  orders  wrong  ;  so  they  had  four,  viz.  pastor, 
teacher,  ruling-elder,  and  deacon. 

t  Hubbard's  New  England,  p.  188. 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS.  171 

that  hands  must  be  imposed — I  mean  in  so  many  icords  of 
Holy  Writ,  the  warrant  Puritans  require?)  which,  neverthe- 
less, can  be  instrumental  in  conveyfng  ("by  a  sign")  divine 
gifts  and  graces. 

Again,  I  say,  it  matters  not  how  much  Mr.  Hubbard 
modified,  or  Puritans  may  modify.  The  old  Platforms 
themselves  may  be  dismissed  into  oblivion  and  dust ;  and 
are  so,  for,  as  Mr.  E.  A.  Newton  says.  Who  dare  preach 
them  now  1  But  to  us,  that  is  a  very  small  matter.  We 
want  to  know  what  Puritanism  was  in  the  days  of  its  glory; 
the  days  now  chanted  of  in  the  song,  and  glorified  by  the 
eloquence  of  oratory.  We  find  such  Puritanism,  with  lay- 
men at  its  side,  using  just  such  language  at  an  ordination, 
as  our  Church  puts  into  the  mouths  of  bishops ;  and  we  ask, 
how  far  it  advanced  towards  "  the  positive  part  of  Church 
Reformation  in  America  ?"* 

To  this  it  may  not  be  amiss  to  add,  what  Cotton's  name- 
sake says,  in  his  ''  Account  of  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Ply- 
mouth," (Mass.  Hist.  Coll.,  1st  ser.  iv.  135,)  "  The  church 
here  had  left  the  communion  of  the  Church  of  England, 
many  years  before  their  coming  over  ;  and  this  not  so  much 
upon  the  account  of  doctrine,  (although  they  thought  their 
Articles  too  general  and  short,)  as  upon  the  account  of  disci- 
pline, and  government,  and  ceremonies.  The  two  latter 
they  looked  upon  as  relics  of  Popery,  without  Scripture  war- 
rant, and  encroachments  upon  the  kingly  office  of  Christ." 
Yet  their  brethren,  hard  by,  practised  discipline,  and  gov- 
ernment, and  ceremonies  of  the  most  fearless  sort.  They  or- 
dained with  laymen,  till  the  leather-mitten  ordination, t  and 
sometimes  by  laymen  only.     They  re-ordained   the  priests 

*  As  to  the  extreme  church-power,  used  by  these  positive  reformers, 
Mr.  Felt  gives  us  instances  of  the  excommunication  of  a  church  by  a 
church. — Felt's  Salem,  pp.  413,  520.  This  matches  the  mutual  excom- 
munication of  the  Pope  and  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople. 

t  As  we  have  seen.  For  convenience'  sake,  I  give  the  reference 
anew. — Eliot's  Biog.  Diet.  p.  101,     Note. 


172  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

of  their  own  ''  dear  mother,"  '*  the  Church  of  God  in  Eng- 
land." Tliey  gave  the  Holy  Ghost  in  ordination.  They 
did  all  this,  "  as  by  a  sign,"  which  commended  itself  to  the 
outward  senses.  And  yet  they  forsook  and  disowned  the 
Church  of  England,  and  her  most  solemn  acts  in  the  con- 
veyance of  sacerdotal  character,  because,  forsooth,  such  acts 
were  too  formal,  and  presumed  too  largely.  Well  may  we 
say  of  such,  in  the  language  of  St.  Paul,  "  Thou,  therefore, 
which  teachest  another,  teachest  thou  not  thyself?  thou  that 
preachest  a  man  should  not  steal,  dost  thou  steal  V  (Romans 
ii.  21.) 

Some  may  think  I  have  said  quite  sufficient ;  but  there 
remains  another  case,  which  describes  a  Puritan  view  of 
the  ordinations  of  the  Church  of  England  so  graphically, 
that  I  cannot  refrain  from  giving  it.  Mr.  Francis  Higginson, 
the  father  of  the  stately  John,  who  wanted  his  morning  and 
evening  beadle  to  help  him  mount  his  parish  throne,  was 
ordained  at  Salem,  July  20,  1629.  There  was  a  pastor  and 
a  teacher  to  be  inaugurated ;  for  the  Puritans  believed 
(would  to  heaven  they  had  never  done  worse!)  in  division 
of  parochial  labor.  They  had  no  rectors  and  curates,  but 
pastors  and  teachers  :  or,  as  we  might  say,  associate  rectors. 
Mr.  Skelton  was  to  be  the  pastor  on  this  occasion,  and  Mr. 
Higginson  the  teacher.  So  Mr.  Higginson,  in  the  capacity 
of  layman, ^^  (repenting  duly  for  his  Episcopal  ordination,) 
"  with  three  or  four  more  of  the  gravest  members  of  the 
church,  laid  their  hands  on  Mr.  Skelton,  using  prayers 
therewith."  Then  Mr.  Skelton,  with  the  same  "  present 
and  assisting"  peers,  performed  the  same  kind  office  for 
Mr.  Higginson.  And  thus,  says  a  witness  of  the  scene,  **  I 
hope  that  you,  and  the  rest  of  God's  people  with  you,  will 
say  that  here  was  a  right  foundation  laid,  and  that  these  two 
blessed  servants  of  the  Lord  came  in  at  the  door,  and  not  at 
the  window."* 

«^  See  Note  83. 

*  Felt's  Annals  of  Salem  p.  28. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  173 

Alas,  good  chronicler,  if  this  be  laying  a  right  founda- 
tion, when  you  acknowledge  the  Church  of  England  your 
*'  dear  mother,"  and  thus  dishonor  her  most  reverend  acts — 
if  this  be  coming  in  at  the  right  door,  after  jumping  out  of 
her  windows,  then,  though  at  the  peril  of  being  unwritten 
by  you  among  the  people  of  the  Lord,  T  must  deny  and  for- 
bid your  hope.  It  was  a  sad  day's  work  ;  and  error,  heresy, 
and  schism,  on  the  very  spot  where  it  was  performed,  now 
triumph  beyond  the  truth,  and  attest  its  sad  adventure. 
Universalism  and  Socinianism  lift  a  prouder  head  in  Salem, 
and  count  more  converts  there  than  Puritan  Calvinism,  at 
this  very  hour.  And  if  Skelton  and  Higginson,  both  min- 
isters of  the  Church  of  England,  and  both  re-ordained  under 
Puritan  auspices,  could  now  walk  Salem's  streets,  and,  by 
a  fiat  of  their  wills,  could  re-write  history,  and  suppress  all 
that  would  offend  them,  by  changing  all  its  congregations 
into  churches,  bearing  their  "dear  mother's"  name,  the 
transformation  would  at  once  be  made,  and  the  work  of  two 
centuries  ago  be  cheerfully  pronounced  undone.  Ah,  how 
little  do  men  Know,  when  they  start  developments,  where 
the  developments  they  countenance  will  end.  "  I  am  very 
confident,"  says  Robinson,  "  that  God  has  more  truth  yet  to 
break  forth  out  of  his  holy  word."*  And  thus  he  launched 
a  new  sect  upon  the  ocean  of  speculation.  And  that  very 
sect's  descendants  now  plead  this  sanction,  for  every  error 
the  human  mind  can  coin,  and  christen  with  a  religious 
name.t  Oh,  history,  if  thou  couldst  be  unwritten,  a  thousand 
pens  would  fly  freely  to  thy  service  from  would-be  Reform- 
ers' hands ! 

But  this  much  must  suffice  to  show,  how  the  Puritans, 

*  That  was  his  exoteric  doctrine.  In  his  esoteric,  he  warned  them 
against  novelties.  This  was  in  di  private  letter.  See  Mass.  Hist.  Coll. 
2d  Ser.  ix.  32. 

t  See  Upham's  defence  of  Unitarianism,  called  "  Principles  of  the 
Reformation." — Salem,  Mass.  1826. 


174  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

after  professions  of  the  deepest  attachment  to  the  Church  of 
Enghind,  calling  her  the  Church  of  God,  and  asking  her 
love  and  prayers,  have  set  at  defiance  her  most  solemn  and 
sacred  acts,  and  counted  them  empty  nullities,  or  heresies 
to  be  recanted,  or  sins  to  be  contemplated  with  penitence 
and  humility.  And  this,  too,  while  those  very  acts  have 
been  equalled  or  surpassed,  in  formality  and  assumptions, 
by  acts  intended  to  be,  in  comparison,  examples  of  'i  posi- 
tive" virtue.  I  will  close  with  these  questions  :  Can  those 
who  think  even  a  lay  re-ordination  necessary,  after  an  ordi- 
nation by  bishops,  complain  with  much  decency  of  those, 
who  think  an  Episcopal  re-ordination  necessary,  after  an  or- 
dination by  laymen?*  Should  they  not  rather,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  good  old  Thomas  Fuller,!  "  blush  themselves  out 
of  their  former  follies,  and  by  degrees  cordially  reconcile 
themselves  to  the  Church  of  England  ?" 


LETTER  IX 


In  my  last  letter,  I  began  to  illustrate  the  treatment, 
which  the  Episcopal  Church  in  this  country  has  received 
from  the  Puritans.  In  formally  opening  this  fruitful  sub- 
ject, it  was   necessary,  as  a  preliminary,  to  expose  the  pro- 

*  AH  Congregational  ordinations  are  virtually  laical ;  for  as  X\\e  first 
were  so,  all  the  rest  must  be.  A  stream  cannot  rise  higher  than  its 
fountain.  As  to  the  sensitiveness  of  the  Puritans,  upon  re-ordinations 
by  bishops,  see  the  furious  article  in  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  Ser.  ii.  133, 
etc.  It  is  a  vile  indignity,  &cc.,  &c.,  for  bishops  to  do  such  a  thing  ;  but 
for  "  the  good  old  cause  so  signally  owned  by  God,"  (p.  132,  same  vol.) 
it  is  all  right. 

t  Thoughts,  p.  259. 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS.  175 

fcsscd  feelings  of  Puritans  towards  as;  and  authorities  were 
accordingly  given  which  displayed  them  pretty  fully.  The 
manner  in  which  such  professions  were  carried  out,  in  rela- 
tion to  one  of  our  most  distinctive  principles,  that  one  which 
has  given  us  our  familiar  name  of  Episcopalians,  was  the 
first  point,  in  this  department  of  our  subject,  which  then 
received  attention.  A  wide  field,  of  course,  remains  to  be 
traversed;  far  wider  than  will  admit  of  those  extended  in- 
vestigations, which  properly  belong  to  history.  Still,  though 
attempting  memoranda  rather  than  a  full  detail,  I  hope  to 
give  sufficient  to  justify  my  general  aim,  a  defence  against 
Puritan  aspersions  by  an  appeal  to  Puritan  practice.  Those 
who  are  anxious  to  go  more  deeply  can  readily  do  so,  by 
means  of  the  clues  to  which  my  very  frequent  references 
will  guide  them.*  In  England,  the  aim  of  the  Puritans  was, 
as  they  represented  it,  freedom  and  universal  toleration.  In 
New  England,  they  enjoyed  the  one,  and  might  have  ac- 
corded the  other;  but  here  they  forgot  their  ''first  love," 
and,  like  Diotrephes,  were  content  with  nothing  but  supreme 
and  unshared  pre-eminence.  And  this  is  no  strange  politi- 
cal revolution  ;  for,  says  Mr.  Ferguson,  "  The  passion  for  in- 
dependence and  the  love  of  dominion,  frequently  arise  from 
a  common  source  :  there  is  in  both  an  aversion  to  control; 
and  he  who  in  one  situation  cannot  brook  a  superior,  may 
in  another  dislike  to  be  joined  with  an  equal."*  We  are 
now  to  see  how  they,  who  abhorred  dominion  in  Episcopacy, 
on  one  side  of  an  ocean,  illustrated  their  own  fondness  for 
it,  when,  on  that  ocean's  hither  side,  this  same  Episcopacy 
became  a  suitor  to  themselves. 

Singular  as  it  may  seem,  that  spot  from  which  more  op- 
position to  Episcopacy  has  emanated,  than  from  any  in  all 

*  Some  may  complain  of  these.     I  will  only  say,  once  for  all,  I  was 
requested,  most  particularly,  not  to  spare  references, 
t  Civ.  Society,  p.  445. 


17G  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

America,  the  site  of  Boston,  was  first  inhabited,  and  indeed 
owned,  by  a  partaker  of  the  prerogatives  of  the  celebrated 
**  apostolic  succession."*  William  Blackstone,  an  Episco- 
pal clergyman,  was  the  first  settler  and  owner  of  the  penin- 
sula of  Boston.  The  charter  of  1629  superseded  his  title, t 
but  still  the  authorities  gave  him  some  fifty  acres  of  the  soil, 
if  he  should  choose  to  remain  and  cultivate  them.  But  the 
manifestations  of  that  Puritanism,  which  had  called  Eng- 
land's Church  a  "  dear  mother,"  and  asked  for  her  contin- 
ued love  and  intercessions,  were  by  no  means  to  his  taste. 
He  is  the  individual  who  made  the  cutting  remark,  that  he 
came  to  this  country  to  avoid  my  lord  bishops,  and  must 
now  remove  again,  to  avoid  my  lord  brethren  !  J  He  sold  all 
his  estate,  went  off,  bag  and  baggage,  to  Rhode  Island,  and 
settled  on  Blackstone  River,  a  few  miles  north  of  Provi- 
dence— a  river  which  commemorates  his  name  even  now. 
His  residence  may  also  be  known,  more  accurately,  by  a 
small  round  eminence,  called  "  Study  Hill,"  which  was  his 
place  of  retirement.  Mr.  Blackstone  lived  till  1675.  As 
good  an  account  of  him,  as  any,  may  be  found  in  Allen's 
Biog.  Diet.  pp.  108,  109,  which  supplies  me  with  dates  ; 
but  which,  not  unnaturally,  passes  over  in  silence  his  testi- 
mony to  the  early  autocracy  of  the  Puritan  Court  of  High 
Commission.  Blackstone's  case  is  very  important,  to  show 
that  Puritanism  was  intolerable,  and  from  almost  the  short- 
est experience,  to  a  refugee  from  prelatical  tyranny. 

Mr.  Blackstone  sold  his  Boston  estate,  preparatory  to  a 
final  removal  from  a  Puritan  regime,  in  J634  ;  and,  not  im- 
probably, was  quickened   in  his  action  by  the  cases  of  the 

*  "  That  vile,  senseless,  wretched  whinisey,"  says  Cotton  Mather,  etc. 
So  Episcopalians  can  see  how  sweetly  they  were  talked  about,  in  old 
times,  as  well  as  now.    Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  Ser.  ii.  134. 

t  This  shows  how  they  looked  upon  a  title,  under  the  Charter,  as 
swallowing  up  ail  other  titles. 

t  Baylies'  Plymouth,  Pt.  i.  p.  200.— Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  Ser.  ix.  2. 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS.  I77 

Browns,  of  Bright,  and  of  Morell,  which  I  will  now  proceed 
to  notice.* 

Messrs.  John  and  Samuel  Brown  were  among  the  emi- 
grants who  came  to  Salem,  Mass.,  with  Mr.  Francis  Higgin- 
son,  and  the  fleet  of  five  ships,  and  more  than  fifty  guns,  in 
1629.  In  such  high  repute  were  they  with  the  Governor, 
&.C.,  of  Massachusetts,  at  home,  (for  it  is  to  be  remembered 
the  Charter  did  not  come  over  till  the  magnates  brought  it 
in  1630,  and  insisted  upon  bringing  it,  as  a  sine  qua  mm  of 
their  settlement !)  that  they  gave  them  a  recommendation  to 
this  effect :  "  Through  many  businesses,  we  had  almost  for- 
gotten to  recommend  unto  you,  two  brethren  of  our  Com- 
pany, Mr.  John  and  Mr.  Samuel  Brown,  who,  though  they 
be  no  adventurers  in  the  general  stock,  yet  are  they  men 
we  do  much  respect,  being  fully  persuaded  of  their  sincere 
affections  to  the  good  of  the  Plantation  ;f — the  one,  Mr. 
John  Brown,  is  sworn  an  Assistant  here,  and  by  us  chosen 
one  of  the  Council  there;  a  man  experienced  in  the  laws 
of  our  kingdom,  and  such  an  one  as  we  are  persuaded  will 
worthily  deserve  your  favor  and  furtherance,  which  we  de- 
sire he  may  have,  and  that  in  the  first  division  of  lands, 
there  may  be  allotted  to  either  of  them  two  hundred  acres. "| 

It  will  be  perceived,  at  once,  that  this  was  an  almost 
carte  blanche,  from  the  highest  authority,  short  of  royal, 
known  to  Massachusetts,  in  behalf  of  these  gentlemen, 
vouching  for  their  characters,  for  their  disinterestedness,  for 
the  peculiar  intelligence  and  capability  of  one,  and  for  the 
desert  of  both,  of  the  Plantation's  most  substantial  grace,  in 
the  shape  of  *'  entire  property  in  soil."  One  is  mentioned 
as  having  official  rank  under  the  Charter,  both  at  home  and 
in   Massachusetts;    and  the   other,  as   we  learn   from  Mr. 

*  Chalmers,  pp.  145, 146. 

t  This  is  worthy  note.     Even  its  own  Governor,  then,  does  not  call 
Massachusetts  a  colony,  but  a  mere  plantation. 
I  Fe't's  Annals       Salem,  p.  19. 


178  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

Felt,  was  a  member  of  the  Council  of  Massachusetts,  as 
well  as  his  namesake  the  esteemed  jurist.*  Perhaps  two 
individuals  could  not  have  touched  New  England's  shore 
under  fairer  auspices,  or  hoped  for  higher  consideration. 

But,  most  unfortunately,  these  intelligent  and  sincerely 
affectioned  individuals,!  worthy  of  all  favor  and  furtherance, 
even  to  the  extent  of  a  handsome  share  of  Puritan  real  es- 
tate, had  interpreted  such  language,  as  their  fellow-passen- 
ger Mr.  Higginson  used,  and  the  company  of  Gov.  Winthrop 
used,  somewhat  too  strictly.  They  did  most  truly,  in  very 
deed,  esteem  "  the  Church  of  God  in  England,"  as  none  the 
less  a  Church,  because  some  three  thousand  miles  away. 
They  did  not  think  the  first  step  in  "  the  positive  part  of 
Church  reformation,"  (especially  when  the  minds  of  thi^se 
about  them  were  rasa  tabula,  and  they  had  no  idea  of  what 
such  reformation  should  justly  be,)  consisted  in  downright 
separation  from  that  Church,  in  throwing  all  her  most  sacred 
rites  and  symbols  to  the  winds,  and  treating  them  as  filth  and 
rubbish.  No.  They  did  actually,  and  in  all  honesty,  sup- 
pose, that  the  Church  of  England  was  God's  Church  still, 
and  not  the  Church  of  man,  to  be  moulded  after  the  fashion 
of  man's  capricious  choice.  If  that  Church's  practices  had 
been  in  some  respects  silently  dropped,  probably  they  would 
not  have  murmured.  But  they  soon  discovered  that  the  new 
reformation  was  to  be  any  thing  but  negative — it  was  to  be 
"  positive"  with  emphasis.  They  found  the  Church  of 
England  and  the  Government  of  England  assailed,  not  in 
the  sermons  only,  but  in  the  very  prayers  of  the  Puritan 
ministers. J     This  is  a  practice  which,  it  is  well  known,  has 

*  See  Annals  of  Salem,  p.  21. 

t  Here  comes  another  specimen  of  Mr.  Bancroft's  want  of  candor. 
In  \ns  first  edition  he  calls  "  one  an  experienced  and  meritorious  lawyer."' 
In  his  seventh,  he  dashes  his  pen  through  "  meritorious,"  and  blots  it  out ! 
See  Vol.  i.  378,  first  edit,  and  vol.  i  349,  seventh  edit. 

t  Felt's  Salem,  p.  38. 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS.  179 

been  imitated  from  that  day  to  this  in  Puritan  pulpits  ;* 
where  probably  as  severe  things  have  been  said  against  dem- 
ocrats and  sectarians,  in  sermons  and  prayers,  as  in  political 
pamphlets  and  newspapers. 

The  Browns  resented  such  inconsistency  with  solemn 
professions,  such  unfilial  ''  loathing  of  that  milk  wherewith 
they  were  nourished,"  and  they  withdrew.!     Still  they  did 
not  resort  to  a  house  of  public  worship,  erected  by  them- 
selves, but  to  a  private  dwelling  ;    a  sanctuary  which,  as 
Lord  Chatham  said,  the  king  dare   not  enter  unpermitted, 
but  which  a  Puritan  magistrate  could  burst  open  without 
ceremony  to  ferret  out  heretics. |     There  they  hoped,  quiet- 
ly and  without  molestation,  to  listen  to  the  calm,  impartial 
services  of  the    Church   of  England — services  in   which, 
blessed  be  God !  insinuation  and  slander,  the  praise  or  the 
dispraise  of  governments,  or  sects,  or  individuals,  have  not 
a  nook  to  nestle  in.     Nor  is  it  more  wonderful  that  they 
should  have  preferred  such  services,  than  that  many  of  the 
most  intelligent  and  upright  laymen,  of  our  own  day,  should 
do  so.     Who  has  not  a  right,  a  most  sacred  right,  to  be  jeal- 
ous to  the  last  degree  of  the  language,  which  a  frail,  and  fal- 
lible, and  perhaps  excited  mortal,  may  palm  off,  in  his  najne, 
upon  "  The  Father  of  an  infinite  Majesty?"  and  who,  there- 
fore, may  not  contend  for  a  liturgy,  and  nothing  but  a  litur- 
gy, with  unfaltering  independence  ?  nay  who  must  not,  for 
successful  prayer  of  intercession  ?  since  such  prayer  depends 
upon  agreement,  (Matt,  xviii.  19,)  and  agreement,  without 
words  agreed  upon,  is  worse  than  the  concord  of  Puritan 
creeds  ;  of  which  there  are  dozens,  all  open  to  denial  in  their 


*  See  Quincy's  Harv.  Univ.  i.  203;  Peirce's  Harv.  Univ.  p.  163; 
Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  Ser.  iv.  120. 

t  This  withdrawment  Cotton  Mather  represents,  as  a  persecution  of 
the  new  order  in  Church  and  State  !     Magnalia,  i.  67. 

t  Felt's  Salem,  p.  257. 


180  REV^IEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

particulars,  and  yet  all  alike  believed  in  *'  for  substance  of 
doctrine." 

But  let  us  not  wander  from  history  into  argumentation. 
What  was  the  fate  of  the  Messrs.  Brown  ?  Oh,  Endicott, 
an  Episcopalian  yesterday,  but  converted  to-day  to  Plymouth 
separatism  by  a  Plymouth  doctor,*  had  rule  in  Salem.  And 
Endicott,  "  being  of  a  hot  temper,  and  not  possessed  of  the 
greatest  prudence,"  as  Dr.  Gordon  soon  after  tells  us, 
"  summoned  the  brothers  before  him,  as  ringleaders  of  a 
faction."  Ringleaders  of  a  faction,  worshipping  God  in  the 
prayers  of  that  mother,  in  whose  bosom  their  judges  had  re- 
ceived "  such  hope  and  part,  as  they  had  obtained  in  the 
common  salvation  !"  And  this,  too,  when,  as  their  historian 
Hubbard  says,  that  with  reference  to  any  departure  from 
that  mother's  ecclesiastical  econom.y,  "  they  had  not  as  yet 
waded  so  far  into  the  controversy  of  church  discipline,  as  to 
be  very  positive  in  any  of  those  points,  wherein  the  main 
hinge  of  the  controversy  lay  between  them  and  others  !"t 

However,  let  these  self-contradictions  pass,  with  a  retinue 
soon  to  follow.  How  did  Endicott  treat  his  fellow-magis- 
trates, so  "  worthily  deserving  his  favor  and  furtherance," 
and  hundreds  of  broad  New  England  acres?  They  were 
forthwith  denounced,  says  Mr.  Felt,  as  "  factious  and  evil- 
conditioned."!  And  then  they  were,  "  notwithstanding 
their  being  counsellors, "§  and  notwithstanding  their  loud 
remonstrances,  sent  packing  home  to  England  ;  and,  by  a 
curious  coincidence,  in  the  ship  Lion,  or  Whelp,  or  Lion's 
Whelp,  it  is  no  great  matter  which:  siniilis  simili  gaudet.\\ 
And  in  spite  of  such  a  refractory  page,  in  the  history  of  his 
favorite  Puritanism,  Mr.  Hubbard  can  wink  hard,  and  never 
see  it:   (he  gives  it  all  the  go-by  ;)   and,  in  view  of  the  pre- 

*  Gordon's  America,  i.  20.     Hubbard's  New  England,  p.  115. 
t  New  England,  p.  118.  X  Annals  of  Salem,  p.  36, 

§  Gordon,  i.  21 . 
II  Bancroft,  i.  350.     Hazard's  Collect,  i.  263. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  ]81 

cious  letter  on  board  the  Arabella,  complacently  indite  such 
a  sentence  as  this  :  "  Whatever  any  of  their  successors  may 
judge  thereof,  it  is  sufficient  to  discover  what  was  then  in  the 
minds  of  those  that  removed  from  their  dear  native  land. 
If  there  be  found  any  sort  of  persons,  that  since  that  time 
have  imbibed  other  principles  or  opinions,^^  it  is  more 
than  the  writer  hereof  was  ever  acquainted  with  the  reason 
of"*  Hubbard  lived  till  1704  ;  and  so  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land continued  a  *'  dear  mother"  to  the  Puritans,  fairly 
through  the  seventeenth,  and  into  the  eighteenth  century. 
They  promised,  too,  in  their  unasked  letter,  to  give  God  no 
rest  in  her  behalf,  and  wished  their  heads  and  hearts  foun- 
tains of  tears  for  her  everlasting  welfare  !     But  let  us  see. 

How  fared  it  with  the  Messrs.  Brown,  even  in  England  ? 
*'  When,"  says  Chalmers,  "  the  persons  who  had  been  thus 
expelled  arrived  in  England,  they  naturally  applied  to  the 
governor  and  company  for  reparation  of  their  wrongs ;  but 
it  appears  not  from  their  records,  that  they  ever  received 
any  redress.  The  insolence  of  contempt  was  superadded  to 
the  injustice  of  power.  The  letters  which  those  gentlemen 
had  written  to  their  friends  were  intercepted,  and  read  pub- 
licly in  the  General  Court,  on  the  pretence,  equally  mean 
and  unjust,  '  that  they  might  possibly  injure  the  plantation.' 
Thus  early  was  introduced  into  the  politics  of  Massachu- 
setts, the  dishonorable  practice  of  appropriating  the  commu- 
nications of  private  friendship,  wrongfully  obtained,  to  the 
malevolent  purposes  of  party.  It  then  rooted  in  her  system, 
and  in  after-times  produced  abundantly."! 

So,  then,  the  first  censors  of  Episcopacy  in  Massachu- 
setts, could  repudiate  their  own  most  solemn  and  unsolicited 
professions,  and  break  open  private  letters,  with  as  little 

«4  See  Note  84. 

*  New  England,  p.  125. 

t  Clinlmers,  p.  146,  and  the  references  Mr.  C  gives,  pp.  148,  149. 

9 


182  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

compunction  as  a  Papal  post-office.     Even  so  let  it  be.    Bet- 
ter the  frowns  than  the  smiles  of  such  men. 

Yet  Mr.  Felt  insists  upon  it,  that  Endicott  was  right ; 
because  "  for  what  he  did  in  that  affair,  he  had  ample  au- 
thority."* Just  as  if  for  this  case,  as  for  a  thousand  like  it, 
the  adage  could  not  be  found,  "  Ne  sine  forma  tantum  sce- 
lus  fiat."  There  is  not  the  slightest  pretension  that  Endi- 
cott was  not  clothed  in  the  panoply  of  authority  :  and  where 
was  ever  the  tyrant  who  was  not  ?  "  The  Holy  and  Apos- 
tolic Court  of  the  Inquisition"  always  has  its  powers  fortified 
by  signs  manual,  and  seals  enough,  from  Pope  and  King,  to 
warrant  its  most  direful  and  diabolical  acts.  And  beyond  all 
question,  it  was  Ap.  Laud's  honest  conviction  of  duty  to  a 
power  above  himself,  and  to  the  welfare  of  the  kingdom, 
which  made  him  a  severe  disciplinarian  of  those  impractica- 
ble tempers ;  which  would  never  let  any  thing  control  them 
but  absolute  force,  and  who,  when  that  was  removed,  could 
never  control  themselves. t  "  His  views  of  religious  liberty 
were  as  just  as  those  of  the  Puritans  :  the  principles  of  both 
were  the  same  :  and  while  the  practices  of  the  Puritans  are 
attributed  to  the  principles  of  the  age,  the  same  allowance 
must  in  justice  be  made  for  the  Archbishop."|  But  all  this 
avails  nothing.  Endicott  was  a  most  righteous  judge,  "  a 
second  Daniel ;"  and  Laud  a  most  unrighteous  persecutor,  "  a 
second  Saul  of  Tarsus."  I  know  the  logical  conclusion  so 
well,  from  long  experience,  that  I  am  able  to  state  it  before- 
hand for  my  Puritan  readers,  (if  such  persons  may,  by  some 
chance  accident,  stumble  upon  my  pages,)  and  thus  save 

*  Annals  of  Salem,  p.  39. 

t  "  The  violence  of  some  men's  tempers,"  says  Hubbard,  describing 
one  Puritan  contention,  when  in  fact  it  will  answer  for  a  CafAoZ/c  descrip- 
tion, "  makes  theifl  raise  debates,  when  they  do  not  justly  offer  them- 
selves, and  like  millstones  grind  one  another,  when  they  want  other 
grist."     Hubbard's  New  Eng.  p.  143. 

t  Lathbury,  p.  168. 


REVIEW  OE  THE  PURITANS.  Ig^ 

them  the  labor  of  anticipation.  For  other  references  to  the 
Browns,  see  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  Series,  vi.  242,  245,  and 
ix.  4,  5.S5 

Next  to  the  case  of  the  Browns  comes  that  of  the  Rev 
Francis  Bright.  He  was  one  of  the  four  ministers,  who 
came  over  in  Mr.  Higginson's  fleet.  He,  too,  seems  to  have 
labored  under  the  same  infirmity  with  the  Browns  ;  that  of 
understanding  language  according  to  its  natural  tenor.  He 
found  Mr.  Higginson  and  Mr.  Skelton  inclined  to  establish 
a  totally  new  ecclesiastical  polity  in  Salem.  He  disagreed 
with  them,  and  removed;  even  before  their  reception  of  lay- 
orders  at  the  hands  of  the  brethren.*  He  went  to  Charles- 
town,  and  attempted  to  sustain  his  position,  with  a  congre- 
gation of  his  own.  But  a  year's  trial  satisfied  him  that  the 
mania  of  revolution  had  infected  the  people,  as  well  as  the 
ministers,  and  he  returned  to  England,  to  him  now  a  "  dear 
mother"  in  very  deed.  His  attachment  to  Episcopacy,  how- 
ever, was  enough  to  ruin  him  in  the  esteem  of  his  brethren, 
though  his  piety  was  beyond  all  question.! 

And,  now,  where  were  the  heads  and  hearts  turned  into 
fountains  of  tears,  for  the  affliction  of  one  of  their  ecclesias- 
tical parent's  devoted  children?  Tears?  Why  Hubbard 
and  Mather  both  make  him  the  subject  of  their  jeers  and 
scorn.  This  is  the  way  in  which  the  first  dismisses  him": 
"  He  began  to  hew  stones  in  the  mountains;  wherewith  to 
build  ;  but  when  he  saw  all  sorts  of  stones  would  not  suit 
the  building  as  he  supposed,  [not  the  right  of  private  judg- 
ment even  allowed  such  an  one,]  he,  not  unlike  Jonah,  fled 
from  the  presence  of  the  Lord,  and  went  down  to  Tarshish."| 

S5  See  Note  85. 

*  Gordon,  i.  21. 

t  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  series,  ix.  2. — "  Mr.   Bright,  a  godly  minis- 
ter."    Hubbard's  New  England,  p.  112, 
X  New  England,  p.  113. 


184  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

The  second  mentions  him  in  connexion  with  his  colleague, 
Ralph  Smith,  thus.  Smith,  be  it  remembered,  was  more 
inclined  to  go  a  little  too  far  for  the  Salem  duumviri,  while 
Bright  was  not  inclined  to  go  far  enough  ;  and  it  seems  that, 
rasa  tabula  as  their  minds  might  be,  they  were  quite  able  to 
see  any  one  totally  in  the  wrong,  and  totally  worthy  of  con- 
demnation, who  did  not  agree  to  submit  to  their  dictation  in 
every  thing.  Smith  went  to  Plymouth,  and  became  a  min- 
ister there  ;  and  Bright  finally  went  home,  as  has  been  stated  ; 
but  Mather  thus  recklessly  blasts  them  both.  *'  There 
were  two  that  began  to  hew  stones  in  the  mountains,  for  the 
building  of  the  temple  here  ;  but  when  they  saw  all  sorts  of 
stones  would  not  fit  in  the  building,  the  one  betook  himself 
to  the  seas  again,  and  the  other  to  till  the  land,  for  which 
cause,  burying  all  further  mention  of  them  among  the  rub- 
bish in  the  foundation  of  the  Colony,  we  will  proceed  with 
our  story."* 

Now  there  could  be  no  possible  objection  to  burying  an 
Episcopalian,  like  Bright,  and  a  man  of  "  low  gifts  and 
parts,"  like  Smith,  whom  Higginson  and  Skelton  could  not 
make  a  useful  tool  of,  beneath  the  rubbish  of  New  Eng- 
land's foundations.  This  was  their  rhetorical  destiny.  But 
then  to  do  it,  as  Mather  has  done,  and  represent  one  as  be- 
coming a  sailor,  and  the  other  a  farmer,  because  they 
ceased  to  "  hew  stones"  for  a  Massachusetts  ecclesiastical 
establishment,  is  a  defiance  of  sober  truth  and  fact,  which 
could  hardly  be  expected.  Bright  never  abandoned  his 
sacred  profession,  that  I  can  any  where  learn  ;  and  Smith 
was  long  a  Puritan  preacher  at  Plymouth  and  Manchester.! 
Mather,  however,  would  degrade  one  into  a  Jack  Tar,  and 
the  other  into  a  tiller  of  the  ground  ;  and  yet  he  boasts  that 
his  history  is  written  in  the  spirit  of  Catholic  communion, 
and  to  tax  schismatical  persecution  !  \ 

*  Magnalia,  i.  63,  64.  t  Baylies'  Plymouth,  Pt.  i.  266. 

t  Magnalia,  i.  35. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  185 

As  to  Morell's  case,  that  has  been  noticed  already.  I 
will  only  add,  concerning  this  most  truly  modest,  peaceful, 
and  intelligent  man,  whose  attempted  hierarchy  and  dull 
poem  furnished  Mr.  Bancroft  with  a  subject  for  his  char- 
acteristic flippancy,  what  a  fairer  historian  of  Puritanism 
has  said  of  him,  in  another  place  than  one  already  referred 
to  in  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Collections.  "  Had  this 
gentleman  been  stimulated  by  religious  zeal,  had  he  been 
more  remarkable  for  bigotry  than  for  his  learning  and 
candor,  like  some  who  are  to  be  found  among  every  de- 
nomination of  Christians,  he  would  have  excited  contention, 
and  given  trouble  to  the  other  settlements.  But  instead  of 
blowing  the  coals,  he  was  disposed  to  extinguish  the  fire 
that  had  been  kindled,  and  which  a  small  matter  would 
have  spread."  And  then,  in  a  note,  after  complimenting 
his  ''  dull  poem,"  he  adds,  "  Will  not  every  person  who  is 
without  the  prejudices  of  Dr.  Cotton  Mather,  [and  of  Mr. 
Bancroft,  he  would  have  added  at  a  later  day,]  give  his  tri- 
bute of  respect  to  the  memory  of  a  man,  who  exhibited  so 
much  literature  and  virtue  ?"* 

Massachusetts,  however,  was  no  place  for  such  men  as 
the  Browns,  or  Bright,  or  Morell,  so  long  as  the  slightest 
hankering  after  Episcopacy  lingered  in  their  breasts,  and 
therefore,  one  after  the  other,  per  fas  ant  nefas,  was  com- 
pelled to  bid  it  farewell.  This  Mr.  Blackstone  saw  from 
his  Beacon  Hill,  in  Boston,  with  his  observant  eye.  "  The 
lord  brethren"  he  beheld  marching  in  the  very  footsteps  of 
*'  the  lord  bishops,"  whose  overshadowing  power  had 
made  him  flee.  He  was  afraid  that  their  little  fingers  would 
be  thicker  than  the  loins  of  their  predecessors — he  hastily 
parted  with  every  foot  of  land,  over  which  a  Puritan  sceptre 
could  assert  authority,  and  sought  a  refuge  in  Rhode  Island  ; 
then,  and  long  after,  the  well-known  asylum  for  victims  of 
Puritan  malediction. 

*  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  series,  ix.  6. 


186  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS 

In  connexion  with  the  case  of  the  Browns,  those  who 
are  familiar  with  the  history  of  New  England,  might  expect 
me  to  notice  the  case  of  William  Vassall,  who  came  over 
with  them,*  and  whose  name  is  somewhat  notorious  on  Pu- 
ritan pages,  as  being  "  almost,  if  not  altogether,"  one  of 
those  malignants  who  "  incline  to  bishops."  But  I  passed 
him  by  to  notice  him  here  ;  since  Mr.  Deane,  the  historian 
of  the  town  where  he  a  good  while  resided,  (Scituate,) 
doubts  whether  he  were  a  genuine  Churchman,  because  of 
his  outward  conformity  to  Puritan  regimen. t  Probably, 
Vassall  might  have  loved  Episcopacy  as  much  in  his  secret 
soul,  as  his  neighbors  loved  it  in  a  published  letter:  The 
fate  of  the  Browns  was  as  wholesome  a  warning  to  him,  as 
w^ere  the  walls  of  the  Bastile  to  many  a  poor  Frenchman, 
whose  spirit  would  gladly  have  bounded  from  its  natal  soil  with 
the  elastic  sprightliness  of  freedom.  So  he  determined  to 
accomplish  his  object  in  a  more  circuitous,  but  more  com- 
prehensive method,  by  promoting,  in  every  way  he  could, 
legislative  toleration — that  freedom  for  which  Puritans  in 
England  J  had  panted,  petitioned,  remonstrated,  voted,  re- 
belled, and  finally  drawn  the  sword  and  thrown  away  its 
scabbard,  to  conquer  or  die — not  for  that,  but  for  their  own, 
sole  supremacy. 

And  now,  forsooth,  how  is  such  a  character,  the  very 
impersonation  of  themselves  in  England,  (rebellion  and 
ficrhting  duly  excepted,)  how  is  he  regarded  in  America  ? 
As  "  the  chief  of  the  busy  and  factious  spirits,  always  oppo- 
site to  the  civil  governments  of  the  country,  and  the  way  of 
its  churches."  Aye,  no  doubt,  they  themselves  thought  so, 
in  that  old  dusty  age  of  Cotton  Mather's  "rubbish,"  when 
they  were  hewing  stones  and  laying  foundations,  and  none 

*  Vassall  was  a  strong  friend  of  the  Browns.  Eliot's  Diet.  pp.  464,  465. 
t  Deane's  Scituate,  p.  89, 

X  In  New  England,  the  Puritans  called  such  toleration  mere  car- 
rion ! !  "     Hutchinson's  Collect,  p.  154. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  187 

saw  clearly  but  their  own  bright  eyes.  Oh,  would  it  were 
so  !  But  the  sentence  comes  from  no  lower  an  advocate  of 
popular  freedom,  than  the  democratical  Mr.  Bancroft  ;  who, 
like  the  Romans  of  yore,  hates  power  most  virulently,  when 
you  call  it  rex,  but  has  no  quarrel  at  all  with  it,  when  you 
call  it  imperator,  or  *'  Ancient  Colony  Laws."*  The  sen- 
tence quoted  above,  though  mostly  written  by  Vassall's  an- 
cient opponents,  is  by  Mr.  B.  made  absolutely  his  own,  and 
emblazoned  upon  his  pages.  Nor  is  that  all.  He  pronounces 
the  same  opinion  upon  the  motives  of  Vassall,  and  such  as 
acted  in  union  with  him,  which  was  entertained  by  those 
who  frowned  upon  them  with  true  Puritan  austerity.  ''  In 
Boston,"  he  says,  "  a  powerful  liberal  party  already  openly 
existed.  But  now,  the  apparent  purpose  of  advancing  re- 
ligious freedom,  was  made  to  disguise  measures  of  the 
deadliest  hostility  to  the  frame  of  civil  government.  The 
nationality  of  New  England  was  in  danger."! 

O,  I  could  hardly  believe  it  possible,  for  an  advocate  of 
religious  liberty  and  independence — of  the  largest  liberty  in 
Church  and  State — to  have  written  this,  did  I  not  know, 
beforehand,  from  infallible  authority,  that  a  man  may  see  a 
mote  in  another's  eye,  while  unconscious  of  a  beam  within 
his  own  !  "  The  apparent  purpose  of  advancing  religious 
freedom,  was  made  to  disguise  measures  of  the  deadliest 
hostility  to  the  frame  of  civil  government"  ?  Can  it  be, 
that  a  man  of  Mr.  Bancroft's  boastful  knowledge  of  the 
original  sources  of  history — who  by  a  dash  of  his  pen  would 
blot  the  names  of  other  historians,  as  "  not  trustworthy"|: — 
can  it  be,  that  such  a  man  does  not  know,  that  this  is  one 
of  the  old  charges  against  the  Puritans  themselves  ?  Why 
his  very  words  are  an  echo  of  Laud's  own,  already  quoted 
in  my  second  letter,  "  that  these  men  do  but  begin  with  the 

*  Bancroft,  i.  438.  t  Ibid,  437. 

t  Bancroft,  i.  300,  note. — On  p.  287,  Mr.  B.  eulogizes  Robinson,  be- 
cause he  wrote  on  "  Separation"  and  justified  it.  Now  here,  he  denounces 
«'  separation"  from  a  Puritan  establishrnent !     Compare  James,  i.  23,  24. 


188  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

Church,  that  they  might  after  have  the  freer  access  to  the 
State."  But,  proh  pudor !  what  Ap.  Laud  found  mathe- 
matically true  in  England,  was  not  true,  could  not  be  true, 
and  never  will  be  true,  of  an  appellant  from  Puritan  domi- 
nation !  A  statute  of  lese-majesty  is  an  unpardonable  op- 
pression in  a  monarchy  ;  a  just  self-defence,  in  a  Puritan 
theocracy.  Vassall  would  have  been  a  patriot  in  England  ; 
in  New  England  he  was  a  factionist  and  a  rebel.  Ah,  how 
exquisitely  did  Democritus  satirize  human  nature  when  he 
said,  that  Truth  hid  herself  in  the  bottom  of  a  well  1 

And  now,  having  given  my  readers  a  hint  of  the  ver- 
sion, which  an  historian,  like  Mr,  Bancroft,  can  put  on  a 
case  like  that  of  Vassall,  seeking  for  toleration,  I  will  dismiss 
it  with  the  plain  matter  of  fact  statement  of  the  Hon.  Mr. 
Baylies.  He  had  been  speaking  of  the  odious  *  Test  Act,' 
which  made  church-membership  a  necessary  qualification 
for  voting  at  a  Puritan  poll,  and  the  preservation  of  which 
Mr.  Bancroft  identified  with  the  continuance  of  "  the  na- 
tionality of  New  England"  !  *'  Some  of  the  best  men  in 
the  colony  were  precluded.  William  Vassall,  Esq.,  of  Sci- 
tuate,  who  had  been  an  Assistant  in  Massachusetts,  and  was 
one  of  the  wealthiest  as  well  as  worthiest  and  most  intelli- 
gent gentlemen  of  whom  the  colony  could  boast,  was  dis- 
qualified for  office  ;  for,  although  a  Puritan,  he  continued 
an  Episcopalian."* 

Mr.  Vassall,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  a  member  of  the 
Colony  of  Plymouth.  But  there  were  unquestionably  those, 
who  thought  with  him  upon  the  subject  of  toleration,  in  the 
Colony  of  Massachusetts,  and  he  could  influence  such  per- 
sons to  action.  This  may  explain  to  us  the  last  memorable 
point  in  the  history  of  Massachusetts,  connected  with  Epis- 
copacy, before  she  acquired  almost  entire  independence, 
during  the  interregnum  of  the  Crown,  and  even  ventured  to 
coin  her  own  money  like  a  sovereign  state.  With  this  point 

*  BayUes'  Plymouth,  Pt.  i.  230. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  IQQ 

of  history,  virtually,*  though  not  formally,  connected  with 
that  watchword  for  equal  rights  and  privileges — the  name  of 
Vassall — I  will  close  this  letter. 

'*  In  1646,"  says  Dr.  Morse,  (Geog.  p.  186,)  ''  the  Col- 
ony was  disturbed  by  some  of  its  principal  inhabitants,  who 
had  conceived  a  dislike  of  some  of  the  laws  and  the  govern- 
ment. Several  of  these  disaffected  persons  were  imprisoned, 
and  the  rest  compelled  to  give  security  for  their  future  good 
behavior."! 

And  now,  kind  reader,  what  terrific  disturbance  do  you 
suppose  these  inhabitants  were  guilty  of,  "  principal"  though 
they  were  ?  Something,  no  doubt,  like  a  Hartford  Conven- 
tion, a  Philadelphia  riot,  or  the  burning  of  religious  houses, 
such  as  Charlestown,  Mass.,  saw  a  few  years  since.  No, 
nothing  at  all  like  either,  or  in  any  way  approaching  either, 
disguise  and  daub  the  matter  as  writers  like  Drs.  Morse 
and  Mather  may  try  to  do.  These  tremendous  traitors  only 
exercised  that  right,  which  some  of  the  busy  spirits  of  New 
England  have  knocked  so  long,  and  loudly,  and  vainly,  at 
the  doors  of  Congress,  in  order  to  enjoy  to  their  hearts' 
content — the  right  of  petition  !  And  was  that  all  ?  nothing 
but  the  right  of  petition  ?  Why,  the  descendants  of  the 
Puritans  have  all  but  burst  open  the  doors  of  the 
Hall  of  Representatives  in  Washington,  and  battered  the 
Speaker  out  of  his  chair,  because  themselves  could  not  be 
heard  upon  a  subject  setting  our  very  Union  on  fire  !  But 
when  the  same  right  is  demanded  of  their  forefathers,  the 
answer  is,  an  arraignment  at  the  bar  of  criminal  justice,  and 
the  award  is,  fines,  recognizances,  or  a  prison.  O  remember 
this,  New  England,  when  we  next  hear  your  muttering 
thunders  about  the  right  of  petition. j: 

»  Hutchinson's  Hist.  i.  pp.  136,  137. 

t  Mather  smuggles  the  gst  of  this  mntter  cut  of  sight  most  effectu- 
ally.    Magnalia,  i.  116. 

t  Or,  to  repeat  the  langungeof  the  Rev.  Peter  Hobart  of  Hingham,  the 
9* 


190  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

But  who  or  w  hat  were  these  petitioners  ?  One  of  them, 
at  least,  was  a  Churchman,  and  they  all  wanted  more  of 
separation  between  Church  and  State,  and  more  freedom 
for  members  of  the  Church  of  England  and  the  Kirk  of 
Scotland.  The  spirit  of  Vassall  was  with  them,  and  he 
would  cheerfully  have  given  them  aid  ;  but  about  this  time 
he  sailed  for  England,  and  never  returned,  at  least  to  Puri- 
tan soil. 

Perhaps  the  story  had  better  be  given  in  the  words  of  a 
Massachusetts  annalist ;  and  accordingly  I  shall  go,  where  I 
have  so  often  gone,  to  the  Historical  Collections.  *'  No  man 
in  the  plantation  was  allowed  to  hold  an  estate,  or  vote  as  a 
freeman,  except  he  were  a  member  of  a  Congregational 
church,  such  as  the  New  England  settlers  had  declared  to  be 
according  to  the  model  of  primitive  Christianity.^^  Mr. 
Maverick,  who  had  fixed  his  tent  on  Noddle's  island,  and 
possessed  some  considerable  property  when  the  banks  of 
Charles  River  were  settled  by  our  fathers,  had  been  declared 
a  freeman,  though  an  Episcopalian  ;  wliich  shows  they  were 
less  rigid  when  they  first  came  over,  than  they  were  after- 
wards. As  soon  as  they  felt  their  consequence,  they  real- 
ized certain  powers  which  they  never  would  have  dared  to 
exercise,  had  it  not  been  for  the  confusions  in  England. 
There,  the  Independents  had  the  most  influence,  but  they 
did  not  deprive  other  men,  or  sects,  of  the  privilege  of  think- 
ing for  themselves,  or  enjoying,  with  their  possessions,  the 
privilege  of  society.  Here,  was  a  kind  of  theocracy  ;  and 
the  power  given  to  members  of  churches,  or  rather  taken  by 
them,  enabled  them  to  build  partition  walls.     The  petitions 

8«  See  Note  86. 

ancestor  of  Bishop  Hobart — that  sad  man,  who,  like  his  descendant,  was 
bold  and  would  speak  his  mind — Remember  this.  New  England,  that  the 
day  has  been,  when  your  purest  patriots  "  were  so  waspish,  that  they 
might  not  be  petitioned."     Savage's  Winthrop,  ii.  255. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  JQI 

of  Robert  Child,  Maverick,  and  others,  mark  the  character 
of  men  and  of  the  times."*  These  petitioners,  says  Hutch- 
inson, "  prayed  that  civil  liberty  and  freedom  might  be 
forthwith  granted  to  all  truly  English,  and  that  all  members 
of  the  Church  of  England  or  Scotland,  [i.  e.  Presbyterians, 
as  well  as  Episcopalians  !]  not  scandalous,  might  be  admit- 
ted to  the  privileges  of  the  churches  of  New  England  ;  or, 
if  these  civil  and  religious  liberties  were  refused,  that  they 
might  be  freed  from  the  heavy  taxes  imposed  upon  them, 
and  from  the  impresses  made  of  them,  or  their  children,  or 
servants,  into  the  war."t 

And  what  could  be  more  modest  or  harmless  as  a  re- 
quest, or  what  more  equitable  as  an  alternative,  if  the  request 
must  be  denied  ?  Denied  of  course  we  expect  to  find  it, 
however  intolerable  such  a  denial,  if  made  to  themselves  by 
a  crowned  head.  But  one  would  hardly  expect  even  Puri- 
tans to  take  four  good  calendar  months,  as  Mr.  Greenwood 
assures  us  they  did, J  to  concoct  a  bitter  refusal.  Nor  then 
should  we  have  supposed  such  modest  and  lowly  applicants 
for  legislative  relief,  in  the  constitutional  and  respectful 
shape  of  a  petition,  could,  by  Mr.  Bancroft's  logic,  be  con- 
verted into  factionists  and  rebels.  Yet  such  was  the  literal 
fact.  As  Dr.  Morse  says,  they  were  disturbers  of  the  public 
peace,  whatever  their  rank  or  station.  To  open  the  mouth, 
though  never  so  blandly,  against  a  Puritan  Establishment, 
was  rank  sedition.  He  who  ventures  it,  must  •be  gagged 
with  a  fine,  or  soldered  up  in  a  prison.  The  sanctuary  of  a 
private  letter  shall  not  save  him  :  that  very  letter  shall  be 
opened,  to  find  new  crimes,  and  furnish  keener  accusa- 
tions.§ 

All  this,  too,  when,  as  Mr.  Felt  says,  (with  as  small  a 
sense  of  the  mischiefs  of  juxtaposition  as  they  themselves 

*  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  series,  ix.  47.  t  Hist.  Mass.  i.  137. 

t  Hist.  King's  Chapel,'p.  6.  §  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  138,  139. 


192  REVIEW  OK  THE  PURITANS. 

had,)  during  this  very  year  (IG46)  they  were  remonstrated 
with  from  England  in  favor  of  Anabaptism  and  Presby- 
terianism  ;  and  when  the  General  Court  actually  appointed 
a  committee,  to  frame  anew  some  of  their  laws,  in  order  to 
let  autocratical  England  know  *'  their  utter  disaffection 
TO  ARBITRARY  GOVERNMENT  !"  I  Compare  Mr.  Felt's  sen- 
sibility to  theirs,  because,  while  they  thus  outraged  these 
harassed  yet  temperate  remonstrants,  and  in  the  next 
breath  avowed  their  horror  of  tyranny,  he  mentions  this 
horror  to  their  praise  ;  and  then,  with  all  calmness,  goes  on 
to  show  how,  among  other  enormities,  they  fine  people 
five  shillings  for  absence  from  Puritan  worship,  and  forty 
shillings  a  month  for  disloyalty  to  a  Puritan  Establishment, 
and  doom  rebellious  children  to  a  violent  and  ignominious 
death  !* 

Who,  in  view  of  such  spots  on  Puritan  character,  as 
much  out  of  place  as  the  spots  on  Laocoon's  priestly  robes, 
when  defiled  sanie  atroque  vencno,  can  expect  a 'com- 
mentator to  be  as  cool  as  an  astronomer  describing  the 
chequered  surface  of  the  moon  ?  If  these  men  lacked 
sense  or  reason,  we  might  dismiss  them  with  a  sigh.  If 
they  were  wise,  like  the  children  of  light,  for  heaven  only, 
we  might  drop  the  tear  of  pity  on  their  aberrations.  But  it 
is  the  boast  of  their  eulogists,  (see  the  close  of  Mr.  Baylies' 
Plymouth,)  that  in  the  wisdom  of  this  world,  they,  and  their 
descendant*,  have  been  among  the  foremost. t  And  yet 
such  men  denounce  tyranny,  and  then  exemplify  it!  loathe 
an  act  of  tyranny,  as  their  utter  abhorrence,  and  then 
''  shoot  out  their  arrows,  even  bitter  words,"  after  four 
months  sharpening,  against  petitioners  for  the  rights  of  con- 
science !  Willingly  would  one  call  this,  as  Belknap 
did  Hutchinson's  impartiality,  but    inattention.      But  who 

*  Felt's  Salem,  pp.  172-176. 

t  They  had  a  fairer  opportunity  to  hit  right,  as  Hubbard  says,  "  than 
ever  men  had  in  many  ages  past."     New  England,  p.  181. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  193 

can  dispraise  such  heads,  to  exonerate  such  hearts  1  The 
cool,  grave,  marble  self-possession  of  the  Puritans,  when 
defending  themselves,  and  of  their  advocates  when  lauding 
them  for  exquisite  conscientiousness,  compels  one,  when  not 
provoked  to  smiles  by  it,  to  think  it  would  be  displayed  to 
no  ill  advantage  on  the  steps  of  the  pillory, 

*'  We  honor  his  Majesty,"  says  Deputy  Leet,  "  but  we 
have  tender  consciences."*  And  so  he  was  to  obey  him 
when  he  pleased,  and  set  him  at  naught  when  he  preferred; 
and  all  the  while  act  under  his  Majesty's  authority  !  And 
must  men  look  as  demure  as  if  just  from  Trophonius's  ora- 
cle, before  logic  the  like  of  this?  Must  they  have  even 
Hudibras  thrown  at  royalists,t  and  never  be  allowed  to  say, 
Hudibras  has  cut  both  ways,  and  described  the  non-con- 
formist too  1  If  a  tender  conscience  may  disobey  the  au- 
thority which  gives  it  power  to  do  any  ministerial  act,  and 
plead  the  sanction  of  such  authority  when  convenient  to  its 
interests,  must  the  satirical  poet  never  tread  upon  its  hal- 
lowed ground  1  Is  he  an  absolute  blasphemer,  because  he 
boldly  says  of  the  Puritan, 

"  His  slippery  conscience  has  more  tricks 
Than  all  the  juggling  empirics  V 

Is  a  man,  like  L'Estrange,  to  be  pronounced  a  slanderer, 
because  he  says,  "  They  make  their  consciences  like  skit- 
tish jades,  that  boggle  at  their  own  shadows,  and  start  into 
a  precipice  to  avoid  a  feather  ?"f  And  if  we  come  down 
to  our  own  days,  are  we  guilty  of  atrocious  libelling,  if  we 
discover  something  of  this  skittishness,  transmitted,  like  an 
inborn  chorea  Sancti  Viti,  to  Mr.  Bancroft?  For,  on  p. 
348,  vol.  i.,  Mr.  B.  declares  the  Puritans  were  no  bigots; 
and  then,  on  his  next  pages,  proceeds  to  give  their  bigoted 

•  Hutch.  Collect,  p.  337.  t  Upham's  Vane,  p.  323. 

t  Holy  Cheat,  p.  xii.  3d  edit.  1662. 


194  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

persecution  of  the  Browns.  On  p.  458,  he  finishes  his  nar 
rative  of  the  awful  castigations  of  the  Quakers ;  and  forth- 
with speaks  of  toleration,  as  hovering  like  a  dove  at  the 
window  of  the  Ark  of  Safety.*  Then,  on  p.  4G3,  he  says 
he  will  never  apologize  for  Puritan  excesses ;  and,  forsooth, 
the  ink  hardly  escapes  his  pen,  before  he  indites  another 
clause,  in  which  he  glorifies  these  excesses,  and  almost  spans 
them  with  an  overarching  rainbow. 

But  such  argument  upon  the  case  some  will  think  quite 
too  tempting  to  severity;  and,  to  allay  their  fears,  I  will 
leave  unsaid  far  stronger  things  than  I  have  uttered,  and  ab- 
ruptly close  this  letter. 


LETTER  X. 

We  have  now  reached,  in  this  sketch  of  the  demeanor 
of  Puritanism  towards  Episcopacy  in  New  England,  the 
days  of  the  Commonwealth  and  the  Protectorate  of  Crom- 
well. Then,  of  course,  Episcopacy  was  in  dark  abeyance, 
both  in  the  colonies  and  at  home.  In  New  England,  it  was 
emphatically  dumb  and  friendless:  "  tliere  was  none  that 
moved  the  wing,  or  opened  the  mouth,  or  peeped."  (Isa.  x.  14.) 
Then,  too,  the  Anabaptist,  the  Gortonist,  the  Quaker,  the 
Seeker,  the  any  body  and  every  body,  who  might  have  dared 
to  question  Puritan  Supremacy  and  Infallibility,  in  Church 
or  State,  was  harried  out  of  the  land,  or  awed  into  submis- 
sion by  that  formidable  law,  which  threatened  death  to  any 

*  Is  it  possible  he  can  have  forgotten  the  suflerings  of  the  Quakers, 
long  after  the  time,  when,  as  he  would  insinuatej  toleration  had  blessed 
them  ? 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  195 

one  who  should  attempt — aye,  attempt  merely,  the  change 
of  any  essential  feature  of  the  government.* 

Massachusetts  was  now  drawing  round  herself  a  cordon 
sojiitaire,  as  exclusive  as  that  of  the  iron  dictator  of  Para- 
guay, Dr.  Fj-ancia.  No  one  was  permitted  to  entertain  a 
stranger,  who  should  arrive  with  intent  to  reside,  or  allow 
the  use  of  any  habitation,  without  liberty  from  the  standing 
council  !f  None,  therefore,  could  come  within  her  borders, 
but  such  as  her  sovereign  will  approved.  All  who  talked 
to  her  of  changes  in  her  autocracy,  did  so  at  the  consum- 
mate peril  of  never  talking  again  to  human  ears  !  And  now, 
said  she  in  her  heart,  like  mystic  Babylon,  "  I  sit  a  queen, 
and  am  no  widow,  and  shall  see  no  sorrow."  (Rev.  xviii.  7.) 
And  having  effectually  barred  out  all  intruders,  she  com- 
menced the  work  of  internal  reformation,  with  an  unsparing 
hand.  *'  From  the  year  1650  to  the  Restoration,"  says  Mr. 
Chalmers,  "  Massachusetts,  was  chiefly  employed  in  a  busi- 
ness, that  of  all  others  seems  to  have  been  most  congenial 
to  it ;  in  preserving,  by  persecution,  uniformity  in  opinion 
and  discipline. "I  Then  indeed  did  she  make  Boston  a 
second  Rome,  and  the  head-quarters  of  Congregational  Po- 
pery. Fortunately,  however,  the  kingdom,^  and  the  great- 
ness of  the  kingdom,  under  these  western  heavens,  was  not 
to  remain  in  her  possession  for  a  full  quarter  of  a  century. 
Power  shifted  hands  at  home ;  and  she  w^ho  yesterday  said, 
by  the  lips  of  her  favorite  Governor,  (Endicott,)  "  Unless 
you  change  your  religion,  you  die,"  could  to-day  fawn  upon 

*  The  law  may  be  seen  in  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  series,  vii.  233. — By 
it  they  came  near  taking  the  life  of  the  Churchman,  Edward  Randolph, 
whom  Mather  curses  so  heartily  in  his  "  Remarkables,"  p.  107.  See 
Eliot's  Diet.  pp.  402,  403. 

t  Chalmers,  p.  165.     Savage's  Wint.  i.  224. 

\  Chalmers,  p.  ]89. 

§  It  should  be  remembered  that  New  England  was  called  a  "  king- 
dom" by  the  Long  Parliament.     Hutch.  Hist.  i.  110. 


196  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

a  monarch,  whom  in  her  secret  soul  she  hated  and  despised. 
What  a  cringing  letter  was  that  which  this  very  man  had  to 
send  to  England,  when  Massachusetts  was  likely  to  hear  the 
fatal  question,  Quo  warranto,  for  her  unseemly  violence  to- 
wards the  poor  Quakers  and  other  heretics !  This  is  the 
abject  language  with  which  it  closes  :  '*  With  the  religious 
stipulation  of  our  prayers,  we,  prostrate  at  your  royal  feet, 
beg  pardon  for  this  our  boldness,  craving  finally  that  our 
names  may  be  enrolled  among  your  Majesty's  most  humble 
subjects  and  suppliants."* 

But  let  these  matters  pass.  Of  the  period  when  they 
occurred,  it  comports  not  with  my  object  to  speak  particu- 
larly. Still  there  are  two  points  in  Puritan  history,  which 
may  well  enough  be  brought  up  here,  to  fill  a  chasm  before 
we  again  behold  Puritan  tempers  in  direct  collision  with 
the  claims  of  Churchmen. 

The  first  of  tliem  is  a  very  common  mistake,  in  attribut- 
ing the  emigration  of  the  Puritans  altogether  to  the  severities 
of  Ap.  Laud  ;  and  the  second  is,  that  if  a  king  had  secret 
fears  of  the  aspirations  of  Massachusetts  after  independence, 
it  is  no  very  strange  thing,  for,  to  my  mind,  Cromwell  proba- 
bly had  the  same.  The  mistake  above  alluded  to  is  very 
easily  illustrated  by  dates.  The  emigration  of  Robinson  to 
Holland  took  place  in  1608  or  1609.  The  emigration  to 
Plymouth  in  1620,  and  the  emigrations  to  Salem,  &c.  in 
16*29  and  1630.  These  three  epochs  give  us  the  founda- 
tions of  Puritanism,  at  the  principal  dates  of  its  history  out 
of  England.  No  one,  of  course,  will  understand  me  to  say, 
that  there  were  not  emigrations  in  other  years ;  but  these 
are  focal  points,  around  which  the  events  of  those  years 
cluster. 

And  now  (will  it  be  believed?)  William  Laud  was  not 
an  archbishop,  at  even  the  latest  of  these  dates.     He  did 

*  Hutch.  Collect,  p.  329. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  197 

not  succeed  to  Canterbury  until  1633,  when  Puritanism  had 
had  a  fair  start  on  this  soil  of  its  predilections.  But  who 
was  Ap.  of  Canterbury,  all  this  while,  when  Puritanism  was 
so  alienated  from  its  natal  home,  that  it  was  flying  any  where, 
and  every  where,  to  ''  the  outside  of  the  world  ?"  George 
Abbot,  who  was  a  rigid  Calvinist,  and  professedly  almost  an 
object  of  Puritan  adoration.  "  One  favorite  principle  of  his 
government,"  says  Mr.  Le  Eas,  "was  liberality  and  moder- 
ation towards  the  men,  whose  consciences  were  afflicted  by 
the  ordinances  and  ceremonies  of  the  Church."  And  again, 
"  He  was  almost  the  idol  of  that  party,  who  were  incessant- 
ly complaining  of  the  iron  yoke  of  necessity."*  ^^ 

Now  the  phrase,  ''  Laudean  persecution,"  is  notorious 
on  the  pages  of  Puritan  historians,  orators,  and  essayists  ; 
and  if  it  could  be  rhymed  to,  would  be  as  much  so  on  the 
pages  of  Puritan  poets.  Nevertheless,  it  may  fairly  be 
doubted,  whether  one  in  a  thousand  of  their  descendants  is 
aware  of  the  fact,  that  the  emigration  of  the  Puritans  com- 
menced under  the  administration  of  an  Archbishop,  whom 
they  professed  to  admire,  reverence,  love,  and  almost  wor- 
ship, and  whose  Calvinism  was  as  rigorous  as  their  own. 
But  such  is  the  plain  fact.  Puritanism  forsook  England, 
and  established  itself  comfortably  here,  before  Laud  was  at 
the  ecclesiastical  helm  : — at  Plymouth  indeed,  (the  only 
spot  of  its  pilgrimage  according  to  Mr,  Young,)  before  he  was 
so  much  as  a  bishop  any  where.  He  was  not  the  Archbish- 
op, however,  till  1633  ;t  and  then  the  Puritans  had  begun  to 

"  See  Note  87. 

*  Life  of  Laud,  p.  170. 

t  And  O,  most  memorable,  there  was  no  such  thing  as  trial  by  jury 
in  Massachusetts,  till  the  year  after ! — Chalmers'  Revolt  of  the  Colonies, 
1.  47.  In  the  Colony  of  New  Haven,  such  a  thing  as  a  trial  by  jury  was 
not  known  till  a  much  later  date — say  1655,  at  the  very  least.  Kings- 
ley's  Hist.  Discourse,  pp.  33,  34. 

The  learned  professor,  whom  I  refer  to  for  authority,  calls  ihe  gov- 


198  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

practice  his  own  severities  on  the  Browns  and  the  Vassalls, 
who  thought  their  churchmanship  as  tall  as  that  of  his  Grace 
at  Lambeth.  Curious,  most  curious,  coincidence  !  At  the 
very  moment  there  was'onc  Laud  in  England,  in  New  Eng- 
land you  might  have  found  twenty  !  Laud,  too,  could  write 
against  Popery,  after  he  had  become  a  bishop ;  while  Mas- 
ter Cotton  could  write  in  favor  of  two  of  its  loftiest  tenets, 
'  The  Power  of  the  Keys,'  and  the  *  Bloody  Tenet'  of  per- 
secution, after  he  had  become  a  Puritan  !  First  look  on 
this  picture,  and  then  on  that. 

The  second  point  with  which  I  proposed  filling  the  chasm 
in  New  England  Episcopal  history,  relates  to  some  passages 
of  seeming  affection,  between  Cromwell  and  a  common- 
wealth not  indisposed  to  imitate  his  own  penchant  for  abso- 
lute sovereignty. 

Cromwell  had  seen  some  of  the  precious  spirits,  which 
had  had  a  New  England  tutoring,  in  the  persons  of  Harry 
Vane  and  Hugh  Peters ;  and  doubtless  he  inferred,  that  the 
"succession"  would  not  be  interrupted,  and  some  of  his 
plans  be  foiled.  He  was  anxious,  therefore,  to  find  some 
suitable  safety-valve  for  the  dissipation  of  New  England 
steam,  should  it  prove  so  troublesome  as  it  had  done  in  the 
person  of  Harry  Vane.  Now  it  is  an  actual  fact,  that  twice 
during  his  Protectorate,  Cromwell  tried  to  draw  off  settlers 
from  New  England,  and  plant  them  in  Ireland  and  in  Ja- 
maica.* And  he  assailed  them  w-ith  his  characteristic  cun- 
ning, on  their  weakest  side,  that  of  ecclesiastical  self-conse- 
quence.t  God,  said  he,  has  promised  that  his  people  shall 
be  the  head  and  not  the  tail.  But  a  bird  in  the  hand  is 
worth  two  in  the  bush  ;  and  Cromwell  met  his  match.     The 

eminent,  notwithstanding,  by  the  complimentary  term  "  simple."  I  could 
point  him  out  one  quite  as  "simple,"  viz.,  an  absolute  monarchy  with  the 
Inquisition  for  its  court. 

*  Holmes'  Annals,  i.  307.     Hutch.  Hist.  i.  175,  450. 

t  Chalmers'  Annals,  p.  236. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  199 

reply  of  the  Puritans  to  the  project  of  settlement  in  Ireland, 
may  be  found  in  the  appendix  of  Hutchinson's  History,  vol. 
i.  450.  They  there  tell  him,  with  a  tact  parallel  to  his  own, 
"  Although  we  verily  believe  that  your  honor  aims  at  the 
glory  of  God,  and  the  welfare  of  his  people,  yet  (with  favor) 
we  conceive  it  will  tend  to  the  contrary,  for  the  following 
reasons."* 

I  well  know^that  a  very  different  construction  has  been 
put  upon  Cromwell's  conduct,  towards  the  Colony  of  Massa- 
chusetts. Those  who  choose  will  put  a  construction  on  it, 
which  seems  more  apposite  than  mine.  Their  right  is  equal  to 
mine  in  doing  so.  But  my  right  is  equal  to  theirs,  in  reading 
the  Protector's  conduct  as  I  do ;  and,  to  me,  his  repeated  anx- 
iety to  drain  Massachusetts,  is  not  a  very  striking  testimony 
of  his  affection  for  its  permanent  well-being.  And,  somehow 
or  other,  when  I  see  him  and  Puritans  bandying  back  and 
forth  their  characteristic  religious  compliments,  a  fit  of  incre- 
dulity comes  over  me,  unbidden.^*  But  be  all  this  as  it  may, 
we  must  leave  Cromwell  and  his  contemporaries  playing  at 
foils,  to  attend  to  the  destinies  of  Episcopacy  in  New  Eng- 
land, after  the  Commonwealth  at  home  had  shrunk  away 
before  royalty,  at  a  tired  people's  bidding. 

When  reviewing  the  ecclesiastical  history  of  Massachu- 
setts, up  to  the  period  which  is  about  to  be  contemplated, 
Gov.  Hutchinson  makes  the  following  remarkable  declara- 
tions :  "He  that  did  not  conform  was  deprived  of  more 
civil  privileges,  than  a  nonconformist  is  deprived  of  by  the 
test  in  England."  And  again,  on  the  same  page,  "  Nor 
was  there  any  Episcopal  church,  in  any  part  of  the  Colony, 
till  the  charter  was  vacated."! 

89  See  Note  88. 

*  Chalmers'  Revolt  of  the  Colonies,  i.  91.  Chahners  confirms 
Hutchinson. 

t  Hist.  i.  380.     So  also  in  Farmer's  Belknap,  i.  43.     Prof.  Kingsley 


230  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

But  in  16G4,  not  long  after  the  Restoration  of  Charles 
II.,  and  just  before  the  death  of  Endicott,  a  change  came 
over  the  fortunes  of  Puritanism,  as  over  those  of  Nebuchad- 
nezzar in  days  of  old.  The  time  had  been,  as  with  that 
haughty  monarch,  when,  whom  it  would  it  slew,  and  whom 
it  would  it  kept  alive  ;  when,  whom  it  would  it  set  up,  and 
whom  it  would  it  put  down.  And  so,  like  him,  because  its 
mind  was  hardened  in  pride,  it  was  deposed^from  its  kingly 
throne.  (Daniel,  v.  19,  20.)  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  that 
when  its  power  was  mightiest,  and  most  autocratical,  when 
it  was  minting  its  own  coin,  and  putting  heretics  to  death, 
that  then  the  decree  went  forth,  "  God  hath  numbered  thy 
kingdom  and  finished  it."  In  the  fullness  of  its  sufficiency 
it  was  brought  to  straits.  Massachusetts,  who  yesterday,  as 
it  were,  had  scorned  and  flouted,  fined  and  imprisoned  peti- 
tioners for  the  rights  of  conscience,  is  compelled  to-day  to 
listen  to  a  rebuke,  to  which  she  dared  not  reply,  but  as  a 
"  most  humble  subject  and  suppliant  I"  It  was  of  course 
useless  to  remonstrate,  as  an  inferior,  with  those,  whose 
chief  grievance  at  home  had  been,  that  their  own  remon- 
strances had  been  disregarded.  A  voice  from  the  Throne 
itself  was  all  which  could  reach  the  auditory  nerves  of  those, 
who,  to  any  thing  that  was  not  palatable,  were  like  the  deaf 
adder  that  stoppeth  her  ears.  That  voice,  however,  came 
at  last :  as  welcome  as  the  roar  of  a  New  England  sea-beach, 
presaging  an  eastern  storm.  But  it  must  be  heard.  Yes,  it 
must  be  heard.  Those  who  loved  dictation,*  as  well  as 
what  a  Plymouth  governor  styled  "  good  trucking  stuff*," 
were  at  last  compelled   to  hear  from  a  source,  resentment 

would  fain  have  us  believe  the  contrary.  Hist.  Disc.  pp.  48,  49.  Eel- 
knap  and  Hutchinson  are  too  respectable,  with  Puritans  themselves,  for 
him  to  gainsay.  Hutchinson  also  admits,  that  their  civil  laws  "  were  more 
sanguinary  than  the  English  laws."  A  most  important  authority  ;  for 
he  was  a  lawyer  and  a  judge.  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  368. 
*  Greenwood's  King's  Chapel,  p.  11. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  201 

against  which  was  paralyzed  by  the  ague  of  apprehension, 
language  such  as  this  :  "  That  such  as  desire  to  use  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer  be  permitted  to  do  so,  without  in- 
curring any  penalty,  reproach,  or  disadvantage  ;  it  being 
very  scandalous,  that  any  persons  should  be  debarred  the 
exercise  of  their  religion,  according  to  the  laws  and  customs 
of  England,  by  those  who  were  indulged  with  the  liberty  of 
being  of  what  profession  or  religion  they  pleased."* 

The  same  language  had  been  lised  by  King  Charles  in 
1602  ;  and  finding  that  in  respect  to  this,  as  well  as  other 
matters,  the  minds  of  his  distant,  "  most  humble  subjects  and 
suppliants"  needed  stirring  up,  by  way  of  remembrance,  he 
sent  over  four  commissioners  to  enliven  their  recollections. 
One  of  these  commissioners  was  Samuel  Maverick,  a  son  of 
one  of  the  unfortunate  seven,  who  petitioned  so  vainly,  and 
worse  than  vainly,  in  1646.  Unquestionably  there  was 
something  pointed  in  this,  as  there  was  in  part  of  the  King's 
language:  the  use,  e.  ^.,  of  the  word  scandalous;  which 
had  so  often  resounded  from  Puritan  tongues,  when  ringing 
the  tocsin  for  the  downfall  of  the  Church  of  England.  The 
royal  wit  determined,  no  doubt,  to  hurl  back  upon  them 
some  of  their  own  weapons  ;  having  discovered  that,  to  all 
anti-puritanic  heretics,  their  quiver  had  been  an  open  sepul- 
chre.    (Jer.  V.  16.) 

It  may  be  asked,  with  no  little  curiosity,  how  the  jerkins 
of  the  Puritans  bore  pricking  with  the  points  of  their  own 
arrows.  Sorely  and  sullenly  enough;  yet  resent  such  an 
infliction,  on  the  representatives  of  sarcastic  majesty,  they 
could  not.  But  ill-temper  always  finds  an  object  in  one  be- 
neath us,  when  it  has  not  courage  to  assail  those  above. 
The  Puritans  had  sent  Simon  Bradstreet  and  John  Norton, 
{ut  modo,  a  mixture  of  the  magistrate  and  the  minister — of 
church  and  state,)  as  their  agents  to  England,  to  represent 

*  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  219. 


202  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

themselves  as  entirely  loyal,  to  remove  all  scandals  and  ob- 
jections which  might  arise  against  them,  to  preadvise  them 
of  coming  storms,  and  finally,  and  above  all,  to  do  nothing, 
and  to  let  nothing  be  done  prejudicial  to  the  precious  Char- 
ter, which  had  been  transported  from  England,  for  more 
than  thirty  years,  and  was  resigned,  at  last,  with  the  pro- 
foundest  sighs.* 

Bradstreet  and  Norton  had  gone,  sorely  against  their 
wills  ;  for  they  anticipated  no  great  success,  and  they  knew 
too  well,  by  past  experience,  what  awaited  them  at  home,  if 
their  mission  failed.  Now  it  did  not  fail.  They  undoubt- 
edly performed  their  utmost.  They  obtained  an  answer 
from  the  king,  "  kinder  to  them,  and  more  respectful  to  their 
charter  and  liberties,  than  they  had  reason  to  expect."t 
Yet,  ill-starred  answer !  it  "  touched  the  sore  point  of  their 
ecclesiastical  peculiarities  and  prejudices, "J  required  them 
to  grant  as  a  concession,  what  themselves  had  once  demand- 
ed as  a  right,  freedom  "  tender  consciences."  And, 
therefore,  the  embassy  which  brought  it  became  fatally  un- 
lovely. A  plague  spot  was  discovered  in  it,  which  could 
never  be  forgiven  or  forgotten.  Both  its  instruments  were 
disowned,  discountenanced,  and  most  cuttingly  reviled  ;  so 
that  one  of  them  sunk  into  dreary  melancholy,  and  was  hur- 
ried by  apoplexy  into  a  premature  and  unhonored  grave.§ 
Dr.  Dwight,  in  his  Sermons  on  the  Commandments,  must 
have  classed  such  a  death,  had  he  noticed  it,  among  murders. 
I,  however,  shall  not  presume  to  say  that  the  hapless  emis- 
sary, whom  the  Quakers  thought  a  victim  of  God's  judg- 
ments for  his  cruelties  to  them,||  came  to  his  end  as  crimin- 
ally as  if  poignarded  by  an  assassin.  Still,  in  the  eyes  of 
One,  who  looks  upon  the  hater  of  his  brother  as  a  murderer, 


*  Snow's  Doston,  p.  197.  t  Greenwood's  King's  Chapel,  p.  7. 

X  Ibid.  p.  8.  §  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  205. 

II  Ibid.  i.  205,  note. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  203 

there  may  be  little  difference  between  dying  under  execra- 
tions or  a  dagger. 

It  may  be  supposed  that  the  strong  language  of  King 
Charles,  sustained  and  enforced  by  his  Commissioners,  in- 
troduced Episcopacy  into  Massachusetts  without  further  dif- 
ficulty. But  the  fact  was  altogether  otherwise.  The  Colo- 
ny fought  the  King  and  his  agents,  most  strenuously.  What 
with  quibbles,  evasions,  and  postponements,  and,  as  the 
King  himself  said  in  his  letter  to  the  Plymouth  Colony, 
*'  their  refractoriness,"*  and  the  Charter  for  a  rampart,  they 
kept  the  contest  up  till  1684,  when  the  Charter  itself  became 
a  nullity  under  the  sentence  of  an  English  court.  Even  in 
1670,  (during  this  interval,)  we  find  Roger  Williams  taunt- 
ing them  with  unabated  hostility  to  the  Common  Prayer 
Book,  as,  if  tolerated,  the  inlet,  in  their  view,  to  abomina- 
tions without  end.t 

In  1686,  however,  the  Charter  which  had  been  their 
Palladium,  and  the  preciousness  of  which  ought  to  have  de- 
terred them  from  "  evident  partiality  to  the  Revolution  which 
overthrew"!  the  friend  that  granted  it — the  Charter,  their 
all  in  all  for  more  than  half  a  century,  was  formally  wrested 
from  their  hands.  True,  they  tried  to  hide  and  save  it.§ 
But,  concealment  or  resistance  were  alike  fruitless ;  and  a 
royal  President,  with  an  Episcopal  clergyman  in  his  train, 
at  last  entered  the  harbor  of  the  capital  of  Puritanic  Mas- 
sachusetts. 

Graphically  does  Mr.  Greenwood  open  this  inauspicious 
era,  in  the  romance  of  New  England  history.  ''  The  Rose 
Frigate  must  have  seemed  to  the  greater  part  of  the  Bosto- 
nians,  or  Bostoneers,  as  Randolph  called  them,  freighted 
heavily  icith  woe,  bearing  as  it  did  the  Rev.  Robert  Rat- 


*  Hutchinson,  i.46G.  t  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  series,  i.  281. 

X  Felt's  Salem,  p.  203. 

§  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  308.     Chalmers'  Revolt,  i.  113. 


204  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

cliffe*  of  the  Church  of  England,  with  his  surplice  and  his 
Book  of  Common  Prayer ;  to  say  nothing  of  the  commission, 
which  appointed  a  president  over  them  by  the  king's  sole 
authority,"!  Probably  the  celebrated  dark  day  which  came 
in  the  same  spring  month,  about  a  century  later,  with  its  eve- 
ning and  night  perfectly  Egyptian, |  did  not  surpass  the  day 
which  brought  a  cargo  so  redolent  of  heresy  and  horrors. 

But  it  is  not  my  purpose  here  to  enter  into  full  particu- 
lars;  for  I  am  writing  memoranda,  and  not  a  narrative. 
Greenwood's  history  of  King's  Chapel,  Boston,  will  give  a 
Churchman  the  most  important  facts ;  and  the  glosses  on 
them  he  can  make  allowance  for,  or  substitute  his  own. 
The  history  of  Harvard  University,  by  President  Quincy, 
will  also  not  be  without  its  value  to  the  student  and  the  an- 
nalist. Neither  he  nor  Mr.  Greenwood  has  any  sympathies 
with  Calvinism ;  and  where  Calvinism  might  have  thrown  a 
mantle  over  its  own  frailties,  they  lift  the  curtain  with  a 
steady  hand.  Still  if  they  love  Calvinism  less,  they  do  not 
love  Episcopacy  more ;  and  where  the  prejudices  of  the  Pu- 
ritans against  Episcopacy  merely  come  under  their  review, 
we  must  expect  them  to  be  less  resolute.  With  these  hints. 
Greenwood  and  Quincy  may  be  consulted  safely. 

Among  the  incidents,  which  show  how  vehemently  the 
Puritans  resented  the  introduction  of  Episcopacy  into  their 
strong  hold,  (Boston,)  may  be  mentioned  the  following. 
Mr.  Ratcliffe  was  denied  the  use  of  a  Puritan  pulpit :  a  li- 
brary-room was  the  only  place  which  could  be  obtained  for 
his  ministrations.  This  is  a  fact  convenient  enough  to  re- 
member, when  Congregationalists  of  the  present  age  com- 

*  "  Mr.  Ratcliffe,"  says  John  Dunton  in  his  journal,  "  was  an  emi- 
nent preacher,  and  his  Sermons  were  useful  and  well-dressed."  Dunton 
was  a  nonconformist  bookseller,  then  on  a  visit  to  New  England.  See 
the  E.xtract  from  "  Dunton's  Life  and  Errors,"  in  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d 
series,  ii.  106. 

t  Greenwood's  King's  Chapel,  p    l^.  \   Felt,  p.  507. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  O05 

plain  that  Episcopal  pulpits  are  not  open  to  them.  It  may 
be  remembered,  too,  that  this  was  done,  as  we  now  do  the 
same,  for  conscience'  sake :  so  that  upon  this  subject,  we 
and  their  ancestors  are  in  perfect  harmony.  If  the  con- 
sciences of  their  descendants  are  more  limber,  I  know  not 
that  they  should  very  querimoniously  urge  that  we  imitate 
their  ancestors  rather  than  themselves.  We  verily  believe 
that,  right  or  wrong,  their  ancestors,  conscience-wise  con- 
sidered, were  better  men  than  they  are.  Do  they  not  believe 
this  too  ?  Then  why  do  they  chant  their  praises,  with 
thanksgiving  and  the  voice  of  melody  1 

But  not  pulpits  only  were  denied  Episcopalians.  They 
could  not  enjoy  the  mercy  of  a  bell-ringing,  to  call  them  to 
their  prayers,  and  this  for  the  same  substantial  cause :  it 
would  be  '*  intrenching  on  their  liberty  of  conscience."* 
Now  this  was  particularly  severe,  (unless  perhaps  the  first 
Episcopalians  of  New  England  were  a  sort  of  Puseyites  ;)f 
for  the  favor  was  not  asked  for  on  a  Lord's  Day,  when  it 
might  perhaps  disturb  their  sabbatical  tranquillity.  The  bell 
was  solicited  for  Wednesday  and  Friday  morning  prayers,  at 
nine  o'clock  ;  when  nothing  could  have  been  interfered 
with,  but  possibly  some  snug  bargain.  But  no,  it  was 
against  their  conscience  still  ;  though  in  hours  supremely 
secular.  They  could  not  conscientiously  help  a  Churchman 
to  his  prayers,  even  upon  a  common  week-day  ;  though  it 
would  have  been  perfectly  easy,  from  the  situation  of  the 
library,  to  have  kept  carts  rumbling  beneath  his  windows, 
while  he  was  trying  to  recall  his  thoughts,  and  direct  them 
heavenward  amid  life's  bustle.  I  do  not  say  that  carts  were 
sent  there,  for  that  unchristian  purpose  ;  but  I  am  free  to 
say  my  full  belief  is,  not  a  Puritan  truckman  among  them 
all  would  have  travelled  from  his  path,  one  hair's  breadth, 


*  Quincy,  i.  3.57. 

t  They  had  no  pews.  e.  g.  in  their  c'niirh. — Snow's  Boston,  p.  192. 

10 


20G  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

to  allow  the  Liturgy  to  be  joined  in  with  less  distraction.^' 
And  is  this  severe  ?  Why,  how  could  less  have  been  ex- 
pected, when,  as  Mr.  Greenwood  tells  us,  the  Puritan  min- 
isters of  Boston  railed  "  in  their  pulpits  against  the  English 
Liturory,  in  terms  which  few  ministers  would  now  use  of  the 
prayers  of  the  most  degraded  heathen ;"  when  Puritans,  if 
they  happened  to  be  executors  to  a  Churchman,  would  not 
allow  the  service  of  his  own  Prayer  Book  to  be  said  over  his 
dead  body,  and  would  absolutely  interrupt  and  stop  a  cler- 
gyman if  he  attempted  such  an  act  of  charity  ;^"  and  when, 
finally,  they  denounced  any  curious  inquirer  among  them- 
selves, who  should  dare  venture  to  hear  a  syllable  of  truth 
from  an  Episcopal  pulpit,  as  a  rank  apostate.* 

And  this  perhaps  is  quite  enough  to  show,  what  the 
Church  had  to  encounter  on  Puritan  soil,  even  with  a  royal 
governor,  disposed  to  countenance  and  sustain  it.  Its  cir- 
cumstances could  not  be  comfortable,  and  required  for  their 
endurance  bold  and  hearty  resolution.  Happily  the  early 
Churchmen  of  Boston  were  blessed  with  this,  as  President 
Quincy  somewhat  sarcastically  confesses.  "  Although  they 
were  few  in  number,  poor  in  revenue  and  resources,  and  dis- 
countenanced by  all  the  predominating  colonial  powers,  yet 
kheir  proceedings  indicate  a  spirit  sufficiently  lofty  and  de- 
termined. Excluding  from  their  records  all  recognition  of 
the  authorities  of  Massachusetts,  not  even  referring  to  the 
colony  by  name,f  they  laid  hold  of  the  horns  of  the  transat- 
lantic altar,  placed  their  society  under  the  shadow  of  the 
sceptre  of  the  monarch,  &c."J — the  same  shadow,  he  does 


89  See  Note  89.  9°  See  Note  90. 

*  Kings'  Chapel,  pp.  .30,  42,  27. 

i  Curious  !    Did  not  Pres.  Quincy   know  that  ilie   Puritans  treated 
the  king  just  so? 
I  Quincy,  i.  35G. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  207 

not  add,  in  which  the  Charter,  dear  as  heart's  blood,  de- 
lighted to  luxuriate. 

Still,  with  spirits  firm  as  Plymouth  rock  sturdiness,  the 
Churchmen  of  New  England  had  a  severe  struggle  for  a 
bare  existence ;  as  an  extract  from  an  address  to  King  Wil- 
liam, who  granted  the  Charter  of  1691,  effectually  illustrates. 
Such  an  address  was  presented  by  the  Rector  and  Wardens 
of  King's  Chapel,  Boston,  in  behalf  of  their  fellow  Episco- 
palians. In  it  they  say,  that  they  have  been  *'  injured  and 
abused,  both  in  their  civil  and  religious  concernments,  our 
Church  by  their  rage  and  fury  having  been  greatly  hurt  and 
damnified,  and  daily  threatened  to  be  pulled  down  and  de- 
stroyed ;  our  minister  hindered  and  obstructed  in  the  dis- 
charge of  his  duty  and  office,  and  we  now  put  under  the 
burthen  of  most  excessive  rates  and  taxes,  to  support  the 
interest  of  a  disloyal,  prevailing  party  amongst  us,  who, 
under  pretence  of  the  public  good,  design  nothing  but  ruin 
and  destruction  to  us  and  the  whole  country,"* 

This  is  a  sad  picture  of  the  condition  in  which  Church- 
men found  themselves,  when  the  period  of  the  new  Charter 
was  about  approaching.  And  it  may  well  be  supposed  that 
their  case,  with  that  of  other  ''  separatists,"  ''  new-lights," 
and  ''  dissenters,"  was  distinctly  kept  in  view,  in  the  provi- 
sion of  that  Charter  for  entire  freedom  of  conscience,  for 
all  persons  "  except  Papists,"  But  oh,  how  reluctantly  and 
parsimoniously  did  Puritanism  deal  out  to  others,  that  free- 
dom which,  to  herself,  she  wished  imparted  without  measure. 
The  new  Charter,  like  the  old  one,  was  only  influential  "  as 
she  understood  it ;"  according  to  a  system  said  to  be  politi- 
cally fashionable  at  the  present  day  of  improvement.  Forty 
years  after  this  most  liberal  charter  had  been  bestowed  on 
Massachusetts,  {i.  e.  in  1731,)   a  committee  are  found  re- 

*  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  series,  vii.  194. — Another  ground  of  complaint 
was,  that  in  print  Episcopacy  was  called  "idolatry  and  Popery." — Mass. 
Hist.  Coll.  .3d  series,  vii.  193. 


208  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

porting  to  tlie  legislature  on  the  memorial  of  Roger  Price, 
Commissary  of  the  Episcopal  churches  in  New  England, 
for  a  law  to  relieve  Episcopalians,  as  there  had  been  for 
Quakers  and  Baptists.* 

King  Charles  had  now  gone  where  wit  could  not  save 
him,  nor  profligacy  be  charged  with  petulance.  James  had 
been  obliged  to  flee.  William  and  Mary  had  granted  the 
Charter  just  alluded  to,  and  gone  down  to  that  narrow 
house  where  they  were  powerless  as  the  poorest.  Anne, 
too,  had  come  and  vanished,  and  the  first  George  also.  The 
house  of  Brunswick,  then  upon  the  throne;  had  been  usher- 
ed in  with  loud  whig  thanksgivings.  All  these  changes, 
with  their  natural  counterpart  ones,  had  taken  place ;  and 
the  world  grown  older  in  wisdom,  experience,  and  philan- 
thropy. Even  the  wretched  Quaker,  so  often  blasted  with 
a  curse  in  Puritan  canon  law,  after  the  fashion  of  the  Tren- 
tine  Council,  (another  point  of  consanguinity  between  Puri- 
tans and  Papists,)!  was  not  harried  out  of  the  land  as  for- 
merly. The  detested  Anabaptist,  though  by  the  same  law 
in  which  Massachusetts  showed  herself  such  an  adept  at 
cursing,  "  damnably  heretical,"  had  found  a  corner  to  skulk 
in,  and  by  stealth  had  raised  a  small  house,  wherein  to  wor- 
ship God  after  the  dictates  of  his  conscience.| 

And  now,  again,  just  about  an  entire  century  since 
Episcopacy  had  first  remonstrated  against  the  oppressions  of 
Puritanism,  its  best  hater,  according  to  President  Quincy  ;§ 

*  Felt's  Salem,  p.  397. 

t  See  Ancient  Col.  Laws,  pp.  120-126. — Plymouth  Col.  Laws,  p. 
127.  In  Connecticut,  there  was  a  statute  against  cursing  any  body,  un- 
der which  her  curses  would  have  cost  Massachusetts  six  shillings  apiece  ! 
Connecticut  Laws,  p.  195,  edit.  17C9.  By  the  Massachusetts  law  of 
1746,  her  own  curses  should  have  cost  her  eight  shillings;  or,  if  moder- 
ate, but  four.  New  Haven  cursed  the  Quakers  too.  Morse's  Geogra- 
phy, pp.  237,  238. 

X  Snow's  Boston,  p.  151.     Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  series,  iii.  259. 

^  Harv.  Univ.  i.  351. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  209 

though,  as  he  admits,  it  both  concealed  its  hatred,  and  tohi 
falsehoods  about  it,  when  interest  made  them  necessary — 
about  a  century,  I  say,  from  its  earliest  remonstrance,  Epis- 
copacy again  lifts  its  voice  for  a  Puritan  boon.  A  petition 
is  offered,  praying  that  exemptions  may  be  granted  Epis- 
copalians, similar  to  those  which  had  been  granted — whom? 
And  must  it  be  believed  !  these  very  Quakers  and  Anabap- 
tists ?  Yea,  even  these,  once '*  cursed"  and  "damnable" 
as  they  were,  are  freed  from  that  tax  which  was  considered 
the  most  oppressive  of  burdens  in  England — the  payment  of 
tithes — while  Churchmen  are  ground  by  it  still  !^^  And 
that,  too,  when  really  tithes  are  not  an  imposition  of  the 
Government,  but  an  annuity  entailed  upon  private  property, 
by  private  individuals,  the  owners  of  that  property,  and 
Government  has  nothing  of  concern  in  them,  any  more  than 
in  a  last  will  and  testament ;  save  so  far  as  it  executes  the 
wishes  of  the  donor,  who,  of  course,  has  a  sovereign  right 
to  tax  his  own  estate  in  any  lawful  way  he  pleases  !  And 
that,  too,  when  Puritan  taxes  were  not  the  tithes  of  indi- 
viduals upon  property  of  their  own,  but  the  direct  taxes  of 
the  Government  for  its  own  sake,  like  imposts  to  raise  a 
revenue  1*  And  that  too,  finally,  when,  but  for  the  inter- 
cessions of  the  Primate  of  all  England  and  Metropolitan, 
(the  successor  of  the  vilified  Laud,  and  whom  regret  for 
Laud's  Puritanical  sternness  seems  to  have  stirred  up  to  ex- 
traordinary kind  efibrts  for  Massachusetts,)  the  Charter 
under  which  Massachusetts  then  acted,  had  never,  perhaps, 
been  obtained  !  Ap.  Tillotson  was  a  favorite  with  William 
IIL,  was  the  clerk  of  the  closet  for  him,  i.  e.  his  confi- 
dential chaplain.  And  Dr.  Mather,  the  agent  of  Massachu- 
setts, candidly  acknowledges  that,  at  his  desire,  the  Arch- 
il See  Note  91. 

» 

*  Sometimes,  perhaps,  they  were  tithes;  but  that  would  make  them 
as  bad  as  England.     Neal's  New  England,  ii.  3G7. 


OlO  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

bishop  did  **  often  concern  himself  to  do  kind  offices  for 
the  country,  and  pray  botli  the  king  and  queen  to  put  marks 
of  their  favor  on  their  faithful  subjects  there,  [in  Massachu- 
setts,] and  once  he  went  so  far  as  to  tell  the  king,  It  would 
by  no  means  do  well  for  him,  to  take  away  any  of  those  pri- 
vileges from  the  people  of  New  England,  which  King  Charles 
I.  had  granted  them."* 

O  can  it  be  in  any  wise  a  possibility  !  an  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  supplicating  for  the  preservation  of  a  charter, 
they  had  moved  heaven  with  prayers  and  fastings,  and  earth 
with  agents,  petitions,  fees,  flatteries, t  presents,  bribes — 
nay  threats  and  rebellion,  in  order  to  retain  ?  Why,  it 
were  enough  to  wipe  out  all  the  sins  of  Churchmen,  down 
to  this  very  hour.  But,  grievous  contrast !  a  charter  of 
smaller  compass,  is  employed  to  vex  them  still ;  and  a 
writer,  who,  on  any  other  subject,  would  weep  over  suffer- 
ings for  the  sake  of  principle — even  such  an  one  extenuates 
the  tyranny,  because,  forsooth,  the  Episcopal  churches  in 
New  England  were  then  few  in  number  !j: 

Tell  it  not  in  Gath  !  What !  a  Socinian,  ninety-nine 
hundredths  of  the  writings  of  whose  sect  are  either  contests 
for  principles,  or  about  them,  exculpating  an  unrighteous 
taxation — the  same  sort  of  imposition,  which  severed  his 
native  country  from  Great  Britain — an  imposition  for  which 
our  Revolution  was  begun  and  carried  on,  through  flood 
and  fire,  at  the  free  cost  of  blood  and  pelf,  and  all  but  "  sa- 
cred honor,"  and  wrought  out  at  length,  almost  by  miracle, 
to  his  country's  endless  joy,  (unless  it  corrupt  itself,  and 
grow  schismatical  against  itself,  as  Puritanism  has  long 
since  done) — exculpating  such  an  imposition,  I  say,  because 

*  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  series,  ix.  249.     The  Italics  are  not  mine. 

t  Increase  Mather  told  King  William,  that  if  he  would  get  on  the 
right  side  of  Massachusetts,.he  might  "  become  the  Emperor  of  America." 
Mather's  Remarkables,  p.  123.     Bancroft,  iii.  79. 

i  King's  Chapel,  by  Greenwood,  p.  97,  note. 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS.  211 

lis  sufferers  were  ten,  and  not  a  hundred  ;  a  thousand,  and 
not  a  million  !  Truly  one  wants  Virgil's  hundred  tongues, 
hundred  mouths,  and  lungs  of  iron,  to  speak  long  enough, 
aad  loud  enough,  upon  such  astounding  contradictions. 

But  was  the  petition  for  the  removal  of  such  an  oppres- 
sive and  ungrateful  imposition  granted  T  Granted  !  why,  un- 
less a  Puritan  could,  as  President  Quincy  allows,  conceal  or 
deny  when  policy  demanded,  it  was  granted  long  before. 
What  said  Increase  Mather,  when  soliciting  Queen  Mary's 
intercessions  with  her  husband  for  the  Charter  of  1691  ? 
*'  I  doubt,"  says  her  Majesty,  *'  there  have  been  differences 
there,  as  well  as  here,  about  church-government."  "In 
New  England,"  was  Mather's  unblushing  answer,  "  they  are 
generally  those  that  are  called  Non-Conformists.  But  they 
carry  it  icith  all  due  respect  unto  others.  We  judge  some, 
of  them  to  he  better  men  than  ourselves  .'"*  What  said  Cot- 
ton INIather,  of  Magnalia  memory,  to  ingratiate  a  British  no- 
bleman at  court  in  1718?  "Our  lawful,  and  rightful,  and 
invaluable  king  George,  is  not  known  to  have  so  much  as 
one,  of  all  that  are  truly  of  this  people,  [Mather's  italics] 
disaffected  unto  him."  And  again :  "  Calvinists  with  Lu- 
therans, Presbyterians  with  Episcopalians,  Paedobaptists 
with  Anabaptists,  beholding  one  another  to  fear  God  and 
work  righteousness,  do,  with  delight,  sit  down  together  at  the 
same  table  of  the  Lord  :  nor  do  they  hurt  one  another  in  the 
holy  mountain !  !"t  And  yet,  he  says,  on  the  very  next 
page,  he  writes  nothing  but  what  he  knows  or  thinks  to  be 
true;  when  lo,  the  law  oppressing  Quakers  and  Anabaptists, 
was  not  repealed  till  he  was  in  his  grave,  (he  died  Feb. 
1728,  and  the  law  was  repealed  June  1728, — Felt's  Annals 
of  Salem,  p.  386,)  and  Churchmen  cry  for  mercy,  when  he 

*  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  series,  ix.  251. 

t  Ibid.  1st  series,  i.  105. — Pemberton,  who  died  in  1717,  has  made 
jast  about  as  rash  and  incorrect  a  statement.  Yet  he  was  one  of  their 
*^  stars."     See  his  Sermons.     London,  1727,  p.  258. 


212  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

had  long  been  dust !     How  far  does  all  this  go  to  heighten 
our  confidence  in  the  celebrated  Magnalia  T^ 

But  I  shall  go  astray  myself — Was  the  petition  granted  ? 
It  was  answered.  Not  indeed  with  fines  and  denunciations, 
as  in  1G4G,  but  with  such  a  scurvy  and  stingy  grace,  that 
even  Mr.  Felt  has  to  acknowledge  its  *'  restrictions,"  and 
the  gentle  Mr,  Greenwood  to  call  it  "  backward."  And  it 
\\'[xs  granted ;  but  wdth  such  characteristic  clemency,  that 
the  petitioners  had  to  take  refuge  in  an  appeal  to  the  King 
himself,  and  complain  most  strenuously  of  "  the  suiferings  of 
Churchmen" — sufferings  which  Mr.  Greenwood,  free  from 
all  superstition  about  the  Divine  Nature,  esteems  a  vindic- 
tive punishment  of  the  Divine  Will !  "  What,"  says  he, 
"  What  a  retribution  !    Think  of  the  days  of  Ap.  Laud  !" 

And  this  is  the  way,  is  it,  in  which  sweet  Christian  char- 
ity and  courtesy  can  comment  upon  the  freaks  of  man's 
direful  spite?  they  are  Heaven's  retributions?  Why  really 
this  is  heathenism  revived ;  for  the  heathen  ascribed  their 
own  worst  passions  to  Jupiter,  and  his  most  ungodlike  fellow- 
deities.  It  must  have  been  in  thoughtlessness  that  a  pen, 
which  has  so  often  advocated  sentiments  infinitely  different, 
was  betrayed  into  calling  a  burst  of  uncharitableness,  God's 
vindicating  reminiscence  of  the  days  of  Ap.  Laud. 

But  taking  the  sentiment  in  its  worst  aspect — allowing 
the  retribution — how  easy  thus  to  retort,  and  say.  If  the 
stubbornness  of  Puritanism,  when  left  to  its  own  control,  in 
this  world  o{  improvement  and  dcvelopjticnt,  could  not  abate 
in  near  a  century  ;  (Laud  was  put  to  death  in  1G45  ;)  if  the 
fires  of  its  vengeance  could  not  go  out,  in  a  period  when 
volcanoes  themselves  grow  cool — what,  oh  what  must  it  have 
been,  in  the  lifetime  of  its  devoted  opposer,  whose  neck  it 
doomed  to  the  gallows,  and  at  length  brought  to  the  block  !* 

^  See  Note  92. 

*  Many  do  not  know,  probably,  that  LauJ  was  sentenced  to  be  hung 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  ^213 

Well  might  Laud  say,  '*  I  most  willingly  leave  the  world, 
being  weary  at  the  very  heart  of  the  vanities  of  it,  and  of  my 
own  sins  many  and  great,  and  of  the  grievous  distractions  of 
the  Church  of  Christ,  almost  in  all  parts  of  Christendom."* 
Peace  to  the  ashes  of  the  unshrinking  sufferer  !  O  what 
pyramids  of  praise  would  the  Puritans  have  piled  upon  his 
name,  had  he  but  toiled  for  them,  and  not  against  them  ! 
had  he  perished  in  behalf  of  a  cause,  which  employed,  with- 
out the  slightest  compunction,  the  relentless  will  of  an  Endi- 
cott,  or  a  Bellingham,  or  the  ossified  bigotry  of  a  Dudley  ! 

P.  S. — Of  Endicott  I  shall  elsewhere  speak,  more  fully, 
as  the  most  violent  perhaps  of  all  Puritan  persecutors.  Yet 
when  he  died,  Bellingham  was  put  in  his  place;  because, 
says  Hubbard,  the  Puritans  "  resolvedly  fixed  their  choice 
upon  such  persons,  as  they  judged  most  likely  to  maintain 
the  Government,  in  that  same  state  wherein  it  hath  been 
heretofore,  without  the  least  alteration  or  change." — (N. 
Eng,  p.  582.)  A  Quaker  thus  sums  up  his  character  and 
fate.  "  R.  Bellingham,  governor,  who  had  been  deputy 
under  J.  Endicott,  and  a  party  with  him  in  all  the  inhuman 
severity  of  his  government ;  but  his  power  of  punishing  was 
near  its  termination,  for  soon  after  this  he  went  distracted, 
and  in  that  state  departed  this  life,  the  7th  of  December  in 
this  year" — i.  e.  1672,  and  long  after  Charles  II.  had  in- 
terfered in  behalf  of  the  Quakers,  and  long  after  the  Puritans 
had  pretended  to  modify  their  laws  in  their  favor. — (Gough's 
Quakers,  iii.  95.) 

The  Quakers,  it  thus  appears,  received  more  merciful 
treatment  from  Episcopal  royalty,  than  from  Puritan — what 
shall  I  say  1     Republicanism,  they  professed  it  to  be ;  but 

as  a  common  felon ;  and  that  it  was  with  extreme  difficulty  he  had  his 
sentence  commuted  for  decapitation. — Le  Bas's  Laud,  p.  317. 
*  His  last  will.     Troubles,  p.  457. 

10* 


214  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

Despotism  it  was,  call  it  by  what  soft  name  you  will.  And 
as  a  further  illustration  of  the  amenity  of  England  towards 
the  Quakers,  Dr.  Franklin  tells  us  they  were  counte- 
nanced by  Queen  Anne,  "  who  of  all  our  crowned  heads, 
since  the  Revolution,  was  by  far  the  least  favorable  to  Dis- 
senters."— (Sparks'  Franklin,  iv.  60.) 


LETTER   XI. 

My  object  in  the  three  preceding  letters,  has  been  to 
give  some  general  outline,  covering  a  long  period,  of  the 
treatment  of  Episcopalians  under  a  Puritan  regime.  I  shall 
now  specify  cases  with  less  regard  to  time  or  order,  to  show 
that  not  Episcopalians  only,  but  all  who  were  afflicted  with 
that  intestine  trouble,  which  hindered  Deputy  Leet  from 
obeying  the  king's  mandate,  (a  tender  conscience,)  found 
no  consideration  for  such  tenderness  in  the  judgment  of  Pu- 
ritanism ;  ever  rude  and  rough,  when  not  deciding  in  its 
own  behalf.  Episcopalians,  and  all  who,  like  them,  were 
"  dissenters,"  "  new  lights,"  or  "  separatists,"  to  say  nothing 
of  the  awful  words  expended  on  Quakers  and  Anabaptists, 
were  harassed,  burdened,  and  kept  down,  by  every  species 
of  practicable  vexation  and  oppression.  Puritanism  was 
always  shrewd  enough;  it  knew  sufficiently  well  how  to  be 
tolerant,  when  temporal  advantages  otTcred  a  bonus  for  lenity. 
Then,  like  Mather  before  the  Queen,  it  could  judge  others 
not  as  good  only,  but  even  better  than  its  own  self.  But  the 
penetration  of  Justice  Story  has  stated,  with  admirable  pre- 
cision, the  law  by  which  its  mercy  was  o^raduated.  "  Per- 
secution," says  he,  "  became  less  frequent,  because  it  was 
Jess  safe."* 

*  Miscellanies,  p.  66. 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS.  215 

The  sorest  subject  to  a  Puritan,  in  all  the  features  of 
ihe  political  economy  and  constitution  of  England,  one 
would  suppose  to  be  a  religious  establishment,  or  the  union 
of  the  Church  with  the  State.  At  least,  one  would  suppose 
this,  from  the  language  of  the  Puritans  themselves,  and  that 
of  a  host  of  their  partisans.  President  Quincy,  however, 
(and  the  importance  and  candor  of  his  testimony  must  be  my 
excuse  for  another  allusion  to  it,)  declares,  that  **  an  utter 
detestation  of  the  English  hierarchy,  Church  service,  and 
discipline,"  *'  occasioned  the  emigration  to  New  England."* 
They  could,  he  admits,  cunningly  conceal,  or  brazenly  deny 
"this  antipathy,"  though  one  of  their  ''  master  passions;" 
and  this  no  doubt  is  the  grand  secret  to  explain,  why  much 
of  Puritan  vituperation  of  England  seems  political  rather 
than  religious — seems  levelled  against  the  Government, 
rather  than  the  Church.  They  were  guided  by  the  same 
cautious  policy,  which,  as  Justice  Story  affirms,  directed 
them  in  the  matter  of  persecution.  It  was  'Hess  safe,"  at 
times,  to  avow  their  ultimate  ecclesiastical  aims ;  and  then 
they  disguised  them  under  the  armor  of  political  warfare. 

All  this  was  highly  ingenious,  but  we  must  notwithstand- 
ing assume,  on  Puritan  authority,  that  the  union  of  Church 
and  State  is  one  of  the  worst  of  Romish  abominations.  And, 
now,  mark  Puritanism's  proverbial  inconsistency.  No  soon- 
er does  it  cast  off  the  shackles  of  an  establishment  it  did  not 
itself  manufacture,  than  it  founds  one  of  which,  with  the 
temper  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  it  could  cheerfully  say,  "  Is  not 
this  great  Babylon  which  I  have  builded  ?"  Mr.  Felt  does 
not  hesitate  to  speak,  in  terms,  of  the  bond  of  union  between 
Church  and  State  in  Massachusetts,  which,  at  the  date  of 
1664,  had  existed  *'  for  more  than  thirty  years,"  i.  e.  from 
the  very  outset !  t  *'  Church  and  State,"  says  President  Quin- 
cy,  in  his  Centennial   Address,  "  were  very  curiously  and 

"  Harv.  Univ.  i.  351.  t  Annals  of  Salem,  p.  222. 


216  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

ffficientli/  interwoven  with  each  other,"  (p.  32.)  •*  To 
this"  very  curious,  but  very  efficient  piece  of  mechanism, 
**  they  clung  as  the  ark  of  their  safety."*  In  Hutcliin- 
son's  Collection  of  papers,  the  Puritans  can  be  found  speak- 
ino-  of  their  "  present  establishment,"  and  their  *'  long  and 
orderly  establishment."!  Hazard,  in  his  Collections,  givey 
the  "  ecclesiastical  constitution  of  Massachusetts"  in  full.f 
The  appendix  to  the  Minutes  of  the  Congregational  and 
Presbyterian  delegates,  clearly  illustrates  the  state  of  things 
in  Connecticut ;  where  the  same  curious  and  efficient  me- 
chanism of  Massachusetts  was  so  vigorously  plied,  that, 
says  the  annotator,  "  nor  do  I  find  any  thing  which  looks  like 
an  act  of  toleration,  till  the  year  1708."§  And,  by^he  way,  it 
may  be  added,  when  Connecticut  did  allow  dissenters,  she 
only  allowed  "  sober"  ones,  alias  silent  ones.  A  philippic 
against"  the  standing  order,"  would  have  been  ecclesiastical 
inebriation;  and  reminded  a  bold  adventurer,  (after  Mr. 
Greenwood's  hint,)  of  the  ear-losing  days  of  Bastwick  and 
Prynne.jl 

But  it  would  only  weary  my  readers  to  show  more  ex- 
tensively, how  the  Puritans  of  New  England  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  recognize  their  ecclesiastical  societies,  as  established 
by  civil  government.  With  them,  as  with  Aristotle  about 
tyranny,  the  place  in  which  they  were  called  on  to  define  an 
establishment,  altered  the  hue  of  the  thing  entirely.  Aris- 
totle ^f  pronounced  all  to  be  tyrants,  who  intended  their  own 
good,  more  than  that  of  their  dependents ;  but  finding  the 

*  Story's  Misc.  p.  66.  t  Hutch.  Coll.  pp.  359,  361. 

t  Hazard's  Coll.  i.  488.  §  Minutes,  &c.  p.  52. 

II  Note  86  shows  Mr.  Everett's  incorrectness  on  this  subject.  Trum- 
bull's Connecticut  shows  how  hard  it  was  for  Congregationalists  them- 
selves, if  they  departed  at  all  from  the  Establishment,  to  gain  any  favor. 
See  the  celebrated  Guilford  Case,  vol.  ii,  114,  etc.  This,  too,  as  far 
down  as  1729.  Connecticut  had  her  Establishment  till  1818  ;  Massa- 
chusetts had  one  till  1834. 

^  R.  L'Estrange's  iEsop.  folio,  p.  460,  third  edit. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  217 

world  about  his  ears,  changed  his  ground,  and  said  that 
tyrants  were  a  sort  of  persecutors  of  old  time,  who  had  long 
been  extinct !  In  England,  an  establishment  was  a  tyranny  ; 
but  in  New  England,  according  to  President  Q,uincy,  beto- 
kened ''  a  love  of  independence  and  political  sagacity  !"* 
Behold  in  what  magnificent  rhetoric  some  of  the  old  Puri- 
tans themselves  could  speak  of  it.  Says  John  Wise  of  Ips- 
wich, with  a  confidence  which,  at  this  day,  could  only  be 
thought  to  emanate  from  the  school  of  Pusey  or  Newman  : 
"  It  is  certain  that  the  Church  of  Christ  is  the  pillar  of 
truth,  or  sacred  recluse,  and  peculiar  asylum  of  religion  ; 
and  this  scared  guest,  religion,  which  came  in  the  world's 
infancy  from  heaven,  to  gratify  the  solitudes  of  miserable 
man,  when  God  had  left  him,  hath  long  kept  house  with  us 
in  this  land,  to  sweeten  our  wilderness  state,  and  the  re- 
nowned churches  here  are  her  sacred  palaces. "t 

Having  laid  the  foundation  of  their  Establishment,  (the 
corner  stone  of  which,  let  it  be  kept  in  mind,  was  not  ham- 
mered in  pieces  till  1834  !)  the  Puritans  forthwith  proceed- 
ed to  enact  the  part  of  those,  who  wield  the  energies  of  an 
Establishment,  not  after  the  laws  and  usages  of  centuries, 
but  after  the  new-born  counsel  of  their  individual  wills. 
*'  Every  man,  in  short,"  says  Mr.  Emerson,  summing  the 
matter  up,  "  who  attempted  to  act,  unfettered  by  the  de- 
crees of  the  court,  and  the  judgment  of  the  ministers,  found 
himself  circumscribed. "|  "  The  arm  of  the  civil  govern- 
ment," in  the  powerful  and  unsparing  language  of  Justice 
Story,   "  was   constantly  employed   in   support  of   the   de- 

*  Cent.  Add.  p.  32. — See  Douglass's  Summary,  ii.  105,  on  the  Test 
Act  of  Massachusetts. 

t  The  Churches  Quarrel  Espoused,  p.  G5,  published  in  1710.  A  tract 
against  Presbyterian  tendencies !  Not  even  a  Presbyterian  Establish- 
ment would  answer.  It  must  be  Congregationalism,  oiily,  which  could 
be  "  renowned." 

\  First  Church,  pp.  62,  G3. 


218  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

nunciations  of  the  Church  ;  and  without  its  forms,  the  In- 
quisition existed  in  substance,  w  itli  <ifull  share  of  its  terrors 
and  its  violence."*  And  this,  notwithstanding  their  solemn, 
tremendously  solemn  adjuration  and  pledge,  "  We  do  bind 
ourselves,  in  the  presence  of  God,  to  walk  together  in  all 
his  ways,  according  as  he  is  pleased  to  reveal  himself  to  us, 
in  his  Blessed  Word  of  Truth. — Nor  icill  we  deal  hardly  or 
opprcssingly  with  any,  wherein  we  arc  the  Lords  stcicards. — 
And  all  this,  not  by  any  strength  of  our  own,  but  by  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  whose  blood  we  desire  may  sprinkle 
this  our  covenant  in  his  Name."t  This  Covenant  was 
drawn  up  at  Salem,  Mass.,  in  1629,  and  is  no  doubt  the 
same,  literally,  which  Endicott  subscribed,  and  to  which,  or 
a  similar  one,  Bellingham  and  Dudley  subscribed  also. 
And  yet  no  three,  in  all  Puritan  history,  were  more  pitiless 
persecutors  !  Who  can  contrast  such  frightful  contradic- 
tions, and  not  think  of  the  language  of  Jeremiah,  **  Be  as- 
tonished O  ye  heavens  at  this,  and  be  horribly  afraid  ;  be  ye 
very  desolate,  saith  the  Lord  !  For  my  people  have  com- 
mitted TWO  EVILS." 

I  may,  and  indeed  must  ramble  in  such  a  letter  as  this  ; 
and  therefore  may  here  be  permitted  to  add,  that  while  the 
Establishment  of  Massachusetts  makes  Justice  Story  think 
of  the  "  Holy  and  Apostolic  Court  of  the  Inquisition,"  some 
of  the  penalties  of  this  Court  make  a  Romanist  himself 
think  of  INDULGENCES  !  The  penalties  alluded  to  are  pe- 
cuniary ;  and,  unquestionably,  if  one  chose  to  pay,  he  was 
indulged  in  disobedience,  to  the  full  extent  of  Puritanical 
canon  law.  So  it  is  diverting,  perhaps,  but  neither  ridicu- 
lous nor  untrue,  for  the  Abbe  Raynal  to  say,  "  But  at  the 
same  time  that  amusements  were  forbidden,  equally  with 
vices  and  crimes,  one  might  be  allowed  to  swear  by  paying 
a  penalty  of  one  livrc,  two  sols,  six  deniers ;  and  to  break 

*  Miscell.  p.  66.  t  Neal's  New  England,  i.  1:27,  128. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  219 

the  Sabbath  for  sixty-seven  livres,  ten  sols.  Another  in- 
dulgence ajlowed  was,  to  atone  by  a  fine  for  a  neglect  of 
prayer,  or  for  uttering  a  rash  oath.''* 

A  Puritan  would  read  this,  with  a  sneer  at  the  Abbe's 
simplicity  ;  as  if  such  enormities  as  indulgences  were  ever 
practised  by  his  pope-hating  forefathers.  But  if  he  can  tell 
me  the  essential  difference  between  saying,  *  You  may  be 
exempted  from  the  penance  due  swearing,  if  you  put  a  shil- 
ling into  the  treasury  of  the  Church' — and  '  You  may  be 
exempted  from  the  imprisonment  or  whipping  due  the  same 
sin,  if  you  put  a  shilling  into  the  treasury  of  the  Govern- 
ment'— then  he  may  sneer  on  at  his  leisure.  Or  if  he 
change  his  ground,  and  say,  that  in  this  way  I  involve  the 
Church  of  England  too,  in  the  guilt  of  indulgences,  I  care 
not.  The  sin  of  permitting  man  to  commute  by  money,  for 
offences  against  Heaven,  is  inexcusable  and  detestable ;  be 
it  practised  by  whom  it  may.  But  I  cannot  refrain  from 
adding,  on  the  supposition  I  am  addressing  a  Puritan,  If 
you  are  thus  willing  to  allow  your  forefathers  have  done  no 
better  than  the  Church  of  England,  then  why  their  separa- 
tion from  her  1  We  detect  faults  in  you,  who  went  off  to 
set  that  Church  an  example  of  the  positive  part  of  reforma- 
tion, and  when  we  point  them  out,  the  answer  is,  '  They 
are  your  own.'  This  is  indeed  a  precious  justification  of 
schism — *  It  makes  us  no  worse  than  those  whom  we  aban- 
don.'    Try  again  :  you  are  still  in  the  mire. 

And  now  let  us  examine,  somewhat  more  particularly, 
those  fines  or  indulgences,  which  Puritanism  sanctioned 
under  an  Establishment  altogether  her  own. 

A  fine  for  absence  from  Puritan  worship  was  one  of  the 
earliest  outbreakings  of  a  hatred  of  establishments,  trans- 
formed into  love  and  imitation  of  them.  Another  was  the 
passage  of  "  compulsory  laws,"  to  enforce  the  payment  of 

*  East  and  West  Indies^  v.  181. 


I 


220  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

"  tithes  or  taxes,"  for  the  support  of  an  orthodox  and  godly 
ministry.*  In  1644,  (tlie  practice  it  will  be  seen  was  an 
early  one,)  a  person  by  name  Briscoe,  a  tanner,  published  a 
book  against  such  statutes.  ^Vhereupon  the  ministers 
thinking  such  an  *'  unlearned  and  unstable"  rogue,  fuste 
potius  erucUcndum  quam  argumento,  had  him  summoned 
before  the  magistrates,  who  soon  curried  him  into  a  better 
mind.  I  have  used  this  word,  because  Hubbard  does  not 
like  to  say  precisely  how  they  punished  him  ;t  though 
doubtless  they  were  able,  if  necessary,  to  club  him  with 
muskets,  after  the  fashion  in  which  poor  Oldham  was 
whipped  at  Plymouth. t 

Thus  we  see,  that  notwithstanding  the  sons  of  light,  in 
our  day,  are  beginning  to  discover  mankind  are  children  of 
original  virtue  and  not  of  original  sin,  it  has  been  fashion- 
able, of  old  time,  when  copying  a  wrong  example,  to  trans- 
cend the  pattern.  In  England  a  shilling  was  hardship 
enough,  for  a  man  who  preferred  the  rantings  §  of  the  con- 
venticle to  the  sobrieties  of  the  liturgy.  But  in  Massachu- 
setts Jive  sliillings,  and  in  Plymouth  ten  shillings,  was  not 
too  severe  a  mulct  on  a  profane  "  dissenter." |i  He  who  de- 
nied "  the  country's  power  to  compel  any  to  attend  Con- 
gregational worship,"  was  fastened  by  his  heels  in  the 
stocks.^  He  who  kept  Christmas,  or  any  Holy-Day  of  the 
Church  of  England's  devising,  must  pay  the  same  penalty 
which  he  would  do  for  slighting  the  Puritanical  Establish- 
ment.** And  it  is  a  curious  fact,  that  Christmas,  &c,,  were 
legislatively  condemned,  till  fear  of  the  loss  of  that  Charter, 

*  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  37G,  377.  t  New  England,  p.  413. 

X  Baylies,  Pt.  i.  156. 

§  This  word  is  legitimate,  for  it  is  sanctioned  by  Puritan  canonical 
usage.     See  the  word  "rantor"  in  Plym.  Col.  Laws,  pp.  103,  126. 

II  Felfs  Salem,  175.  Hutch.  Coll.  418,  419.  Plym.  Col.  Laws, 
247. 

IT  Felt's  Saloin,  220.  **  Ibid.  203. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  221 

which  seemed  a  title  to  an  earthly  heaven,  induced  them  to 
let  Holy-Days  go  scot  free  !*  Puritan  penances,  while  they 
lasted,  must  however  have  been  profitable  ;  for  Mr.  Felt 
mentions  the  amount  of  =£109,  10s.  as  inflicted  at  one  time, 
on  those  statutory  ''  blasphemous  heretics,"  the  followers  of 
Geo.  Fox.t  And  these  penances  were  inflicted  on  the 
tongue,  or  the  press,  as  well  as  on  a  dereliction  of  Puritan 
prayers.  He  who  reproached  a  magistrate,  or  a  minister, 
or  circulated,  or  did  not  surrender,  an  unorthodox  book, 
must  pay^ye  pounds,  or  ten  pounds,  according  to  the  ma- 
lignity of  his  crime. t  And  as  woman's  tongue  was  less  dis- 
posed to  lie  quiet,  under  pecuniary  impositions,  hers  must 
be  kept  fast  in  a  cleft  stick."^  The  press  was  put  under 
close  censorship,  and  but  one  printing  office  allowed  in  all 
the  colony.  1 1  The  Bible  was  not  read  in  public  religious 
services,  unless  accompanied  by  exposition  :  thus  carrying 
out  the  doctrine  of  Pope  Pius  IVth's  Creed,  that  to  "  holy 
Mother  Church"  "  it  belongs,  to  judge  of  the  true  sense  and 
interpretation  of  the  Holy  Scriptures."^  Many  suppose, 
by  the  way,  that  the  objection  to  the  public  reading  of  the 
Scriptures  in  Puritan  congregations,  arose  out  of  a  mere 
antipathy  to  the  practice  of  the  Church  of  England  ;  which 
treats  them  so  reverentially,  and  requires  so  much  of  them 
to  be  read.  Not  so.  Hutchinson  gives  the  true  and  exact 
reason.  Puritanism,  when  genuine,  was  always  higher 
church  than  prelacy.     It  believed  in  the  Bible  itself,  with 

*  Fell's  Salem,  pp.  271,  272.  t  Ibid.  217. 

X  Ancient  Col.  Laws,  pp.  121,  122.      §  Felt's  Salem,  p.  118. 

II  Felt's  Salem,  223. — Neal,  in  his  Puritans,  exclaims  against  the 
censorship  of  the  Press  by  Churchmen.  Vol.  ii.  193,  194.  But  it  was 
one  of  the  Puritan  complaints  at  Hampton  Court,  that  the  Press  was  not 
guarded.— Soames'  Eliz.  pp.  538,  539  ;  Fullei-'s  Ch.  Hist.  iii.  183.  And 
as  to  Puritanism  in  New  England  on  this  subject,  see  Felt,  as  above,  and 
Ancient  Col.  Laws.  p.  715. 

•ir  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  377. 


U 


002  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

its  aim  note  mid  comment  only  ;  and  so  does  the  Pope  now. 
Still,  ostensibly,  it  so  detested  all  which  tore  a  Romish 
name,  that  it  rebelled  against  "  the  Julian  style  of  reckoning 
time,  adopted  by  Protestant  nations,"  and  numbered  the 
very  months  of  the  year,  as  Quakers  still  do,  "  by  figures 
and  not  letters."* 

Well  might  Hutchinson  write,  "  Toleration  waspreaclied 
against  as  a  sin  in  rulers,  which  would  bring  down  the 
judgments  of  Heaven  upon  the  land."t  And  well  might 
Belknap  write,  after  him,  in  more  copious  terms,  *'  It  is  too 
evident  from  their  conduct,  that  they  supposed  the  power  of 
judging  to  be  in  those  who  were  vested  with  authority  ;  a 
principle  destructive  of  liberty  of  conscience,  and  the  right 
of  private  judgment,  and  hig  icith  all  the  horrors  of  persecu- 
tion. The  exercise  of  such  authority  they  condemned  in  the 
high-church  party,  who  had  oppressed  them  in  England; 
and  yet  such  is  the  frailty  of  human  nature,  they  held  the 
same  principles  and  practised  the  same  oppressions,  on  those 
who  dissented  from  them."T 

Now  to  be  taxed,  nolens  volcns,  for  the  preaching  of 
such  doctrine  as  these  extracts  indicate,  and  then  to  be 
dragged,  vi  ct  armis,  to  hear  it,  (for  as  the  case  of  Gorton 
shows,  force  could  be  employed  without  stint,  to  march  the 
refractory  to  the  meeting-house  ;  Sav.  Wint.  ii.  14*2,)  seems 
approaching  rather  nearer  the  maximum  of  oppression  and 
tyranny,  than  the  asymptote  tending  to  its  curve.  In  preach- 
ing, however,  we  do  not  discover  all  whicli  was  inflicted  on, 
or  denied,  our  hapless  Episcopal  ancestors.  Laws  are  his- 
torical, to  an  intelligent  observer  of  legislative  action.  The 
law  against  the  observance  of"  any  such  day  as  Christmas, 
or  the  like,"  was  passed,  according  to  a  memorandum  in 
the  Anc.  Col.  Laws,  (p.   119,)  in   1(351  :   though  Mr.  Felt, 

*  Felt's  Salem,  pp.  73,  74.  t  Hisl.  i.  75. 

X  Belknap's  Biog.  ii.  355,  356. 


i   t 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  223 

ill  ^is  Salem,  (p.  203,)  gives  it  the  date  of  1659.  It  is  not 
very  material.  The  mere  passage  of  such  a  law  shows, 
that  Churchmen  had  fled  from  England,  during  the  days  of 
the  Commonwealth,  and  sought  refuge  in  Massachusetts. 
And  it  further  shows,  that  it  was  not  enough  to  deprive 
such  refugees  of  their  home,  and  their  church  ;  they  must 
lose,  likewise,  all  their  cheering  reminiscences.  And  to 
crown  the  matter,  and  display  as  much  legislative  contempt 
as  possible,  for  usages  of  a  Church  they  once  esteemed  it  an 
honor  to  call  their  mother,  they  put  the  Christmas-keeper 
and  the  blacklegs  into  the  same  category,  and  demand  no 
more  penalty  of  the  one,  than  of  the  other,  but  precisely 
the  same  of  both  !*  Nay  they  are  not  content  with  that 
only,  but  they  brand  the  Christmas-keeper  as  an  imitator  of 
foreign  superstitions,  as  one  who  dishonors  his  God,  and 
offends  his  fellow  man  !  Ah,  has  the  spirit  which  dictated 
such  animosity  all  departed  ?  Have  not  those  wJio  now  live 
(1845)  seen  graphically  verified  the  lines  of  Hudibras, 

Who  with  more  care  keep  holy-day 
The  wrong,  than  others  the  right  way  ? 

i.  e.,  who  would  positively  take  more  pains  to  desecrate 
Christmas,  than  others  would  to  reverence  it  ?  For  myself 
I  can  say,  that  some  of  the  sharpest  things,  not  preached 
only,  but  printed,  within  my  own  short  life,  have  had  the 
Festival  of  the  Incarnation  for  their  particular  target,  and 
that  I  have  known  Socinians — yes,  Socinians  themselves — 
less  bitter  against  the  observance  of  such  a  festival,  than  the 
reputed  followers  of  John  Calvin. t 

But  it  may  be  said  this  is  a  perverted  judgment,   and 

*  Ancient  Col.  Laws,  p.  119. 

+  I  say  the  reputed  followers  of  Calvin,  and  not  Calvin  himself;  who 
was  more  charitable.  "  Nor  will  I,"  he  says,  "  condemn  those  churches 
which  have  other  solemn  days  for  their  assemblies,  provided  they  keep  at 
a  distance  from  superstition." — Institutes,  book  ii.  chap.  8,  sect.  34. 


224  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

therefore  a  wholly  mistaken  one.  The  law  against  Christ- 
mas was  repealed  in  IG82;*  and  even  an  organ  was  allowed 
Churchmen,  on  the  very  spot  where  the  Browns  were  per- 
secuted, in  1743.  Aye,  the  first  was  done  to  save  the  old 
Charter  ;  and  verily  if  they  could  have  retained  that  by 
doing  so,  the  Puritans  would  have  kept  Christmas,  and  ap- 
pointed a  bishop,  and  afterwards  treated  both  as  they  did 
King  Charles's  commands  for  tolerating  the  Quakers — by 
obeying  to-day,  and  reviving  old  laws  to-morrow.t  And 
as  to  the  organ,  it  could  not  be  erected  but  after  the  trouble- 
some, and  no  doubt  stormy  process  of  obtaining  a  town 
vote.  J 

So  it  seems  Churchmen  could  not  do  what  they  wished, 
within  the  walls  of  their  own  sanctuary,  but  by  Puritan  per- 
mission ;  and  this,  too,  when  Puritans  had  denounced  Gov. 
Andross,  for  demanding  the  keys  of  the  Old  South  in  Bos- 
ton to  hold  service  there  :  a  denunciation  in  which  even  the 
gentle  Greenwood  joins  issue.  "  It  was,"  he  says,  ''  such  a 
deliberate  outrage  on  the  common  rights  of  property,  to 
say  nothing  of  conscience  and  liberty,  that  we  may  only 
wonder  that  Andross  and  his  abettors,  of  w^hom  doubtless 
Randolph  was  one,  suffered  no  personal  violence  from  the 
people. "§  But  Churchmen  in  Salem,  more  than  half  a 
century  afterwards,  could  not  enjoy  the  use  of  their  own 
ears,  without  Puritan  legislation.  And  had  they  attempted 
to  do  so,  most  speedily  would  "  personal  violence"  have  ar- 
rested them,  if  nothing  less  had  been  effectual — their  doors 
have  been  opened,  if  necessary,  ''  with  axes  and  ham- 
mers" ;  and  their  dismembered  *'  devil's  bagpipe"  stopped 
from  whistling  for  evermore. ^^ 

After  all  apologies,  then,  it  may  confidently  be  stated, 

83  See  Note  93. 

*  Felt's  Salem,  271.  t  Hazard's  Coll.  ii.  596,  611. 

\  Fell's  Salem,  425.  §  King's  Chapel,  p.  39. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  305 

that  the  Puritans  did  not  do  things  of  the  character  speci- 
fied, for  a  short  period,  or  under  few  dissuasives.  Indeed 
it  may  ;  for,  says  Justice  Story,  (whose  free  and  nervous 
pages  upon  this  subject,  I  wish  I  could  quote  entire  :  more 
especially  as  I  have  particular  reason  for  believing,  this  dis- 
tinguished jurist,  in  deference  to  his  auditory,  rather  under- 
stated than  overstated  his  private  sentiments,)  ^'  In  this  ex- 
clusive policy  our  ancestors  obstinately  persevered,  against 
every  remonstrance,  at  home  and  abroad.  When  Sir 
Richard  Saltonstall  wrote  to  them  his  admirable  letter,* 
which  pleads  with  such  catholic  enthusiasm  for  toleration, 
the  harsh  and  brief  reply  was,  '  God  forbid  our  love  for  the 
truth  should  be  grown  so  cold,  that  we  should  tolerate  er- 
rors.'— Yes,  the  very  men  who  asked  from  Charles  the 
Second,  after  his  restoration,  liberty  of  conscience  and  wor- 
ship for  themselves,  were  deaf,  and  dumb,  and  blind,  when 

*  This  celebrated  letter  may  be  found  in  Hutchinson's  Collection, 
p.  401.  It  was  addressed  to  Masters  Cotton  and  Wilson,  two  of  the 
highest  of  the  Puritanical  high-churchmen,  and  told  them,  in  very  plain 
terms,  the  effect  of  their  intolerance  in  England.  "  These  rigid  ways 
have  laid  you  very  low  in  the  hearts  of  the  saints."  I  have  been  de- 
nounced for  my  remarks  on  the  Puritans,  as  "  a  defamer  of  my  forefa- 
thers." Sir  R.  Saltonstall  teas  my  ancestor,  which  men  of  the  Cotton 
and  Wilson  stamp  (thank  Heaven)  were  not.  I  confess  to  an  inheritance 
of  his  temper  and  opinion.  The  rigid  ways  of  the  Puritans  ought  to  lay 
them  low,  in  the  hearts  of  all  saints.  And  perhaps  it  is  a  little  of  his 
blood  which  helps  my  pen,  as  I  describe  them.  If  such  a  plea  of  guilty 
to  the  attack  of  my  enemies  is  what  they  want,  they  may  make  the  most 
of  it. 

I  deem  it  not  inapposite  to  add,  that  Sir  Harry  Vane,  (then  in  Eng- 
land,) in  1645,  addressed  a  letter  of  not  dissimilar  purport  to  Gov.  Win- 
throp  ;  and  warned  him,  lest  "  the  Congregationall  way"  in  Massachusetts 
"  teach  its  oppugners  here  to  extirpate  and  roote  it  out,  from  its  own 
principles  and  practice." — Hutchinson's  Collect,  p.  137. 

Goodwin,  Nye,  Burrows,  &c,,  in  England,  also  rebuked  the  New 
England  Puritans  sharply.  See  references  connected  with  the  next  foot- 
note but  two. 


2-20  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

it  was  demanded  by  his  commissioners  for  Episcopalians 
and  others."*  Hutchinson  shows,  that  the  Puritans  adopted 
opinions  which  were  in  England,  and  by  their  own  brethren, 
"  still  judged  to  be  groundless  and  unwarrantable."t  Mr. 
Bancroft  tells  us  the  editor  of  Winthrop's  Journal,  (Hon. 
Mr.  Savage,)  read  to  him  unpublished  t  letters,  *'  which 
prove  that  the  Puritans  in  England  were  amazed,  as  well  as 
alarmed,  at  the  boldness  of  their  brethren  in  Massachusetts. "§ 
Notwithstanding,  as  early  as  1037,  more  than  fourscore 
opinions  are  branded,  to  quote  the  language  of  subsequent 
statutes  of  law  of  which  they  were  the  primary  foundation, 
as  "  notorious  impieties,"  and  "  damnable  heresies."l|  The 
laws  of  the  Church  became  so  fearfully  and  utterly  the 
laws  of  the  State,  that  *'  five  sixths  of  the  Colony  were  dis- 
franchised by  the  influence  of  the  ecclesiastical  power. "^ 
The  chapter  on  heresies,  in  the  Ancient  Charters,  &c., 
spreads  over  nearly  seven  large  and  close  octavo  pages;  and 
is,  I  suppose,  like  most  of  the  book,  but  a  selection  and  di- 
gest. As  it  there  stands,  with  the  usual  self-consistency  of 
the  sect  whose  sentiments  it  represents,  it  is  contradicted 
and  condemned  by  the  prefaces  to  its  first  and  final  sections. 
It  sets  out  with  admitting,  that  no  human  power  is  lord  over 
the  faith  and  conscience  of  men,  and  may  not  constrain 
them  to  believe  ;  and  then  casts  "  firebrands,  arrows  and 
death"  at  every  thing,  which,  being  "  opposite  received 
opinions  in  practices  of  the  godly,"  becomes  ex  officio 
'*  blasphemous."  It  is  somewhat  unfortunate,  that  this 
statute  was  not  framed  in  better  keeping,  by  adding  to  the 
declaration  "  no  human  power  is  lord  over  the  conscience," 
the  old  clause  of  exception,  duly  amended  thus,  salva  Jidc^ 

*  Stor>'s  Misc.  p.  65.  t  Hist.  i.  80. 

t  Why  are  these  letters  kept  from  public  view  ?  "Would  they  be 
read  too  eagerly  by  Episcopalians,  or  afford  troublesome  quotations  ? 
Compare  Savage's  Wint.  ii.  2G9. 

§  Vol.  i.  344,  note.  |I  Storv-'s  Misc.  p.  66.  ^  Il)id.  p   66. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  227 

€t  salva  ccclcsia  Puriianica.  And  in  fact  I  believe  the 
due  exception  may  be  found  there  ;  though,  as  often  in  the 
writings  of  the  school  of  Loyola,  under  a  disguise  which  it 
requires  penetration  to  detect.  It  is  indeed,  and  the  whole 
of  it,  in  a  petty  monosyllable.  On  closer  examination,  I 
find  the  preamble  to  section  thirteenth  reading  thus : 
*'  Though  no  human  power  be  lord  over  all  the  faith  and 
conscience  of  men."  Now  we  have  the  idea  in  full  ;  and  it 
gives  a  Puritan  seeming  credit  for  liberality,  and  yet  sanc- 
tions just  those  acts  of  persecution,  which  would  suit  his 
taste.  Human  power  is  not  lord  over  all  the  faith  of  men; 
but  it  is  lord  over  a  part  of  it,  and  precisely  that  part  of  it, 
which  a  Puritan  would  determine  to  control.*  I  give  this 
to  my  readers,  as  a  specimen  of  the  ingenuity  of  Puritanic 
legislation.  It  is  doubtless  one  of  those  curious  but  rff.cicnt 
interweavings  of  Church  and  State,  alluded  to  by  the  Hon- 
orable President  of  Harvard  University. t 

As  to  Fast  days,  because  perhaps  mince-pie  and  custard 
were  then  eschewed,  there  is  no  specific  law  against  them  ; 
yet  it  somewhat  curiously  happened  that  Good  Friday,  a 
day  for  which  Puritans  cared  nothing,  was  the  day  when 
Sir  Edmund  Andross  forced  his  way  into  the  Old  South, 
Boston  ;  and  it  becomes  therefore  a  day  quite  memorable 
in  American  Church  history,  as  the  first  when  Episcopal 
services  were  heard  within  Puritanic  walls. t  No  doubt, 
Good  Friday,  or  any  other  day  likely  to  give  prominence  to 
the  Liturgy  of  the  Church  of  England,   had   it  not  been 

*  Just  so  the  Pope  has  the  art  of  making  his  official  documents  have 
a  meaning  of  greater  or  less  latitude,  to  please  himself.  For  example,  his 
bull  against  Elizabeth.  Romish  Fox  and  Sectarian  Firebrands,  pp.  135, 
136. 

t  And  again,  ut  quondam,  for  a  Popish  parallel.  The  King  of  France 
intended  to  allow  liberty  of  conscience  ;  but,  nevertheless,  he  would  have 
but  one  religion  in  his  realms. — Smedley's  France,  ii.  4fi,  Eng.  edit. 

\  King's  Chapel,  p.  39. 


228  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

thought  advisable  to  repeal  the  statute  against  Christmas 
for  the  Charter's  sake,  would  soon  have  fallen  under  pro- 
scription, and  been  ruled  out  of  the  docket  of  Christian 
observances.  And  on  second  thought,  and  new  examina- 
tion, I  am  satisfied  it  was  denounced  ;  for  the  law  includes 
not  Christmas  Day  alone,  but  '*  the  like"  :  and  this  must 
mean  the  like  holy-day,  not  the  like  festival,  for  it  proceeds 
to  say,  that  all  are  guilty  on  such  days,  not  for  "  feasting" 
only,  but  for  *'  forbearing  labor." 

So,  then,  doubtless,  it  was  superstitious,  and  dishonora- 
ble to  God,  and  offensive  to  man,  to  forbear  labor  and  fast, 
in  commemoration  of  the  day  when  the  great  work  of  re- 
deeming a  world  was  "  finished,"  through  chastisement  borne 
by  the  very  Son  of  God.  But  nothing  could  be  more  law- 
ful or  appropriate,  than  to  fast  for  "  the  prevalence  of  Anti- 
christ in  reformed  [not  Papal  it  will  be  observed]  churches 
beyond  the  seas,"  for  "  Episcopal  usurpation,"  and  "  to  gain 
the  favor  of  the  King,  and  the  continuance  of  charter  privi- 
leges;" i.  e.,  with  old  consistency,  it  was  right  to  fast  in 
order  to  pull  the  King's  Church  about  his  ears,  and  alike 
right  to  fast,  that  his  favor  might  be  propitiated  !*  It  was 
"  an  evil  and  a  bitter  thing"  to  take  such  notice  of  a  miser- 
able earthly  monarch,  as  to  pray  for  his  health,  long  life, 
&/C.,  according  to  the  Liturgy.  Rebellion  against  him,  as 
we  shall  presently  see,  was  obedience  to  God.  Still,  when, 
as  Mr.  Quincy  says,t  "  for  protection  against  foreign  pow- 
ers, a  Charter  from  the  parent  State  was  necessary,"  such  a 
Charter  was  a  transcendent  boon,  and  for  that,  as  in  duty 
bound,  they  might  "  ever  pray."  And  further,  though  to 
contemn  royalty  was  so  far  forth  to  be  magnanimous;  yet, 
if  royalty  would  only  lend  its  troops  when  they  were  wanted, 
any  mortification  and  fasting  would  be  undergone  to  insure 
their  victory,  and  the  heartiest  thanksgiving  indulged,  if  vic- 

»  Felfs  Salem,  pp.  21  fi,  221,  262.  t  Cent.  Add.  p.  23. 


J 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  229 

tory,  though  drenched  in  blood,  could  perch  upon  their  ban- 
ners.* In  truth,  if  by  one  such  victory,  the  blood  of  as 
many  Papistical  Frenchmen  could  have  been  spilt,  as  of 
Huguenots  at  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  it  may  fair- 
ly be  believed,  the  Puritans,  like  Gregory  XIII.,  would  have 
sung  praises,  fired  cannon,  and  coined  medals.t 

In  England,  to  talk  like  Martin  Marprelate  of  those 
"  petty  popelings,"  the  bishops,  and  to  experience  therefor 
the  discipline  of  the  Court  of  High  Commission,  was  to 
suffer  martyr-like  for  doing  God  service.  In  New  England, 
to  speak  irreverently  of  the  *'  Lord's  anointed  ministers," 
was  to  hazard  the  lively  consideration  of  some  fifteen  lash- 
es, or  the  ensobering  atmosphere  of  a  dungeon. J  And  this, 
too,  when  the  offender  was  a  woman,  (unless  the  cleft  stick 
were  the  alternative,)  and  when  incest  met  with  no  heavier 
retribution. §  All,  however,  which  could  be  said  on  this  side 
the  water,  against  ministers  of  Church  of  England  origin, 
was  two-fold  more  pardonable  :  it  was  rolled  as  a  sweet 
morsel  under  the  tongue  by  Puritanic  epicures.  "It  would 
seem,"  says  Mr.  Boucher,  an  ear  and  an  eye  witness,  "  that 
in  these  men  religion  exhausts  itself  in  profession  :  the  more 
they  have  of  it  in  their  mouths,  the  less  charity  there  is  in 
their  hearts.  Against  the  ministers  of  the  Established 
Church,  their  censures  are  particularly  sharp  and  severe  : 
in  their  harangues,  they  are  liberal  only  in  bestowing  on  our 
whole  order  the  coarse  epithets  of  venal  and  corrupt  hire- 
lings, carnal-minded  and  ungodly  teachers."  ||    Let,  however, 

*  Felt's  Salem,  453,  455,  et  alibi. 

t  Smedley's  France,  ii.  35.     GifTord's  France,  iii.  285. 

X  No  whipping,  however,  is  inflicted  for  blaspheming  the  Queen. — 
Sav.  Wint.  ii.  10,  11.  And  when  honest  Thomas  Parker,  one  of  their 
own  ministers,  would  not  denounce  the  bishops  as  hard  as  they  did,  he  is 
forthwith  denounced  himself. — Eliot's  Diet.  362.     Magnalia,  i.  435. 

§  Felt's  Salem,  118,  212,  246,  270. 

!l  Boucher's  Discourses,  p.  82, 

11 


230  REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS. 

an  unfortunate  Episcopal  minister  but  deny,  and  in  respect- 
ful terms,  the  imperial  sovereignty  of  Massachusetts,  and 
though  out  of  her  jurisdiction,  (like  the  victimized  Gorton,) 
she  can  summon  him  to  her  awful  bar  of  justice,  and  suffer 
him  to  escape,  only  by  promise  of  voluntary  banishment. 
Such  was  the  lot  of  the  Rev.  Richard  Gibson,  of  Portsmouth, 
New  Hampshire,  as  early  as  1640  !  *  Thus  illustriously  did 
they  begin  to  expound  their  most  sacred  vow,  not  to  "  deal 
hardly  or  oppressingly  with  any,  wherein  they  were  the 
Lord's  stewards" — thus  *'  curiously  and  efficiently,"  to  dry 
up  those  fountains  of  tears,  which  they  had  promised  to  keep 
flowing  for  the  Church  of  England's  everlasting  welfare — 
thus  to  rejoice  in  her  good,  and  unfeignedly  grieve  for  any 
sorrow  that  should  ever  betide  her  !  If  Mr.  Gibson  had  quot- 
ed the  vow  and  the  letter,  which  I  have  now  quoted,  he 
might  have  cost  them  more  time  for  a  reply,  than  the  peti- 
tioners of  1646 ;  but,  like  Morell,  he  seems  to  have  been  a 
quiet  man,  and  made  no  resistance,  though  probably  like 
Blackstone  he  drew  a  longer  breath  at  each  pace,  that  re- 
moved him  from  the  dominion  of  the  ''  Lord  Brethren." 

However,  if  Gibson  was  silent  under  his  own  wTongs, 
one  of  the  Eastern  Governors  was  somewhat  restive,  under 
the  encroachments  of  the  Bay  State.  He  denounces  Mas- 
sachusetts, for  reaching  too  freely  and  too  far,  what  he  calls, 
in  a  graphic  word,  an  "  engrasping"  arm.t  It  has  been 
seen  already,  how  pervading  was  "  the  passion  for  land, "J 
among  those  who  professed  to  have  a  passion  for  love  of 
liberty  and  love  of  conscience,  solely  and  supremely.  The 
imagery  of  the  prophet  soon  became  literally  fulfilled,  in  the 
notoriously  most  "  engrasping"  government  in  British  Amer- 
ica.    The  stretching  out  of  its   wings  filled  the  breadth  of 

*  Adams's  Portsmouth,  p.  27.     Farmer's  Belknap,  i.  29. 
t  Folsora's  Saco,  91. 

t  Bancroft  confesses  this  cost  Massachusetts  an  immense  amount  of 
treasure  and  blood. — United  States,  iii.  81. 


J 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  231 

the  land.  (Isa.  viii.  8.)  "  The  great  Charter  of  the  Bay 
Company  was  unrolled  before  the  General  Court  in  Boston," 
says  Mr.  Bancroft,  to  bring  the  issue  forward  full  pompous- 
ly.* And  he  might  have  added,  (to  refer  to  another  prophet,) 
that  "  lamentations  and  mourning  and  woe,"  were  found 
written  therein,  for  many  who  supposed  themselves  snugly 
and  safely  afar.  The  Charter's  wings  were  found  long 
enough  to  brood  over  Maine  ;  and  but  for  Connecticut's 
suspicions  and  shyness,  (of  which  Gov.  Winthrop  distinctly 
complainSjt)  might  have  folded  her,  too,  like  a  chicken  unto 
its  mother's  side.  Maine  did  not  escape  for  many  a  long 
year.  Connecticut  did  ;  though,  as  Dr.  Trumbull  amply 
demonstrates,  Massachusetts  had  ever  "  an  itching  palm" 
for  her  high  hills  and  lovely  vallies,  and  nearly  made  them 
her's  so  late  as  1 704.  Connecticut's  Book  of  Doom  was  once 
prepared  by  a  Massachusetts  governor  ;  but  her  Day  of 
Judgment,  fortunately,  Massachusetts  never  yet  has  seen. J 

Now,  with  the  treatment  of  Episcopal  clergymen  in  the 
person  of  Richard  Gibson,  compare  Puritanical  treatment  of 
an  Episcopal  Governor,  in  the  person  of  Edmund  Andross ; 
and  that,  too  -«imid  the  solemnities  of  public  worship. §  On 
such  a  mdC^y^,  connected  with  Andross  individually,  I  would 
not  over-anxiously  insist.  I  have  no  special  sympathies  with 
him,  or  with  his  administration  ;  though  I  could  not,  even 
if  a  sturdy  Athanasian,  curse  them  with  the  vehemence  of 
the  Puritanical  President,  and  especially  as  he  does  in  the 
name  of  all  New  England. ||     I  but  introduce  him  as  an 

*  Bancroft,  i.  430. 

t  Savage's  Wint.  i.  284. — Notice  the  reason  why  Gorton  and  his 
associates  were  drawn  into  the  vortex  of  Massachusetts,  and  why  Ply- 
mouth and  Maine  held  off. — Savage's  Wint.  ii.  84,  85  ;  and  note  2,  to 
page  85. 

X  Trumbull's  Connecticut,  i.  411.     Hinman's  Antiquit.  302,  303. 

§  Stiles'  Judges,  pp.  130,  131. 

II  Ibid.  p.  Hi. — Compare  Mather's  "  eternal  farewell"  of  Randolph, 


232  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

illustration  of  the  feelings  of  Puritans  towards  an  Episco- 
palian in  authority  ;  for  he  was  the  first  avowed  Episcopal 
governor  in  New  England.  The  insult  to  which  I  have  al- 
luded, was  given  by  deaconing  out ,  as  the  phrase  goes,  (i.  e., 
the  reading  a  line  or  two  at  a  time,  by  a  Congregational 
deacon,  for  the  people  to  sing  after  him,)  the  following 
verses  from  the  52d  Psalm  of  Sternhold  and  Hopkins' 
version — ^w  incidental  proof,  by  the  way,  that  the  Puritans 
had  learned  to  sing  the  Psalms  of  the  Church,  though  they 
would  neither  read  her  Bible,  nor  pray  her  Prayers ! 

1.  Why  dost  thou,  tyrant,  boast  abroad, 

Thy  wicked  works  to  praise  ? 
Dost  thou  not  know  there  is  a  God, 
Whose  mercies  last  always  ? 

2.  Why  doth  thy  mind  yet  still  devise 

Such  wicked  wiles  to  warp  ? 
Thy  tongue  untrue,  in  forging  lies. 
Is  like  a  razor  sharp. 

3.  On  mischief  why  set'st  thou  thy  mind. 

And  wilt  not  walk  upright  ? 
Thou  hast  more  lust  false  tales  to  find, 
Than  bring  the  truth  to  light.  tP-^' 

4.  Thou  dost  delight  in  fraud  and  guile, 

In  mischief,  blood,  and  wrong  ; 
Thy  lips  have  learned  the  flattering  style, 
O  false,  deceitful  tongue  ! 

As  to  the  originality  of  such  abuse,  this  is  but  a  wretched 
imitation  of  the  manner  in  which  Charles  I.  was  insulted, 
by  means  of  the  same  Psalm,  when  a  prisoner.*     As  for  its 

as  a  "blasted  wretch."  Remarkables,  p.  107.  Stout  cursing,  this. 
Rome  would  be  put  to  its  trumps  to  surpass  it. 

*  Lathbury,  p.  334. — Long's  Review  of  Baxter's  Life,  p.  45.     The 
king  paid  them  in  their  own  coin.   He  called  for  the  Psalm  beginning  thus, 
"  Have  mercy.  Lord,  on  me,  I  pray, 
For  men  would  me  devour." 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS.  333 

wit,  it  might  do  for  a  political  town-meeting ;  which  many  a 
time  and  oft  has  been  held  in  a  Puritan  house  of  worship. 
But  thus  to  rail  at  him,  who,  with  all  his  faults  as  a  Church- 
man and  a  politician,  Douglass  declares,  *'  was  a  good  moral 
man,"* — and  that,  too,  when  he  was  complaisant  enough  to 
attend  their  own  services — then  to  ward  off  (or  try  to  do 
so,)  his  just  and  expected  displeasure  with  the  school-boy 
fib,  that  the  Psalms  were  sung  in  course,  (mark  :  the  Jesuit- 
ical deacon  does  not  say  that  Psalm  was,  and  even  President 
Stiles  cannot  defend  him) — thus  to  do,  I  say,  if  a  specimen 
of  what  Puritanical  congregations  could  countenance,  is  to 
afford  no  small  proof  of  the  imputation,  so  often  fastened 
upon  them,  of  copying  the  Romanist,  in  making  even  reli- 
gion subservient  to  their  private  aims  and  sectarian  passions. 
But  why  should  not  even  religion  have  been  employed  by 
them,  to  annoy  an  unpopular  ruler,  since  it  was  one  of  their 
legitimate  maxims — a  motto  even  for  the  sepulchre — that 
**  rebellion  to  tyrants  is  obedience  to  God."t 

This  was  an  admirable  text  to  fight  aristocrats  with,  a 
century  or  more  ago.  It  was  inspiring  truth,  when  levelled 
against  monarchs,  monarchical  governors,  or  Episcopalians. 
But,  unfortunately,  just  like  the  veto  which  the  Federalists 
inserted  into  our  National  Constitution,  it  can  be,  and  it  is, 
turned  upon  its  authors.  The  demagogue,  the  mobocrat, 
the  sans-culottes,  can  claim  it,  and  plead  it,  as  warmly  as 
Dr.  Stiles  himself,  and  shout  it  with  even  braver  lungs.  It 
is  no  longer  true,  (sic  transit  gloria  mundi,)  as  Dr.  Morse 
once  said  of  Connecticut,  with  such  quiet  assurance  :  "  The 
clergy,  who  are  numerous,  and,  as  a  body,  very  respectable, 
have  hitherto  preserved  a  kind  of  aristocratical  balance,  in 
the  very  democratical  government  of  the  State ;  which  has 
happily  operated  as  a  check  upon  the  overbearing  spirit  of 
republicanism. "J     But  the  awrea  <s^«5  of  the  Puritan  hier- 

*  Summ.  ii.  248.  t  Stiles'  Judges,  p.  107, 

\  Geog.  ed.  1792,  p.  219. 


234  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

archy,  has  long  since  waned ;  and  deeper  sighs  have  fol- 
lowed its  departure,  than  burst  from  the  lovers  of  the  ancient 
regime,  when  the  old  Charter  breathed  its  last.*  Many 
and  many  descendants  of  the  liberty-loving  and  power- 
resisting  Puritans,  begin  to  think  that  Fisher  Ames  spoke 
as  prophetically,  as  he  did  feelingly,  when  he  said,  **  It  would 
seem  as  if  it  were  necessary,  that  we  should  endure  slavery 
for  some  ages,  till  every  drop  of  democratical  blood  has  been 
got  rid  of,  by  fermentation  or  bleeding.  I  dread  to  look  for- 
ward to  the  dismal  scenes,  through  which  my  children  are 
to  pass."t 

Yes,  it  is  but  too  sorry  truth,  that  the  posterity  of  those 
very  men,  who  proclaimed,  and  pressed,  and  fought  for  the 
doctrine,  that  it  was  meritorious  to  resist  any  authority,  which 
themselves  might  interpret  as  tyrannical,  are  now  shrinking 
from  the  precipice  to  which  the  "  sovereign  people"  are 
dragging  them,  with  sneers  and  scoffs  at  their  hints  about 
"  statutes  of  limitation."  Open  Agrarianism  is  now  advo- 
cated by  no  feeble  pens:  witness  the  pages  of  Orestes 
Brownson.  And  yet,  this  very  man,  like  Fear  in  Collins' 
Ode  on  the  Passions,  "  scared  at  the  sound  himself  had 
made,"  has  recoiled  so  far,  that  we  now  find  him  in  the  bosom 
of"  The  Holy  Roman  Church;"  where  he  can  believe  no- 
thing, on  the  most  sacred  of  all  subjects,  but  as  he  is  bidden. 
Nor  does  this  surprise  me ;  for  affright  at  the  consequence 
of  too  much  liberty  made  a  Socinian,  in  my  hearing,  de- 
clare, that  the  only  remedy  was  what  his  ancestors  denomi- 
4  nated  too  much  'power :  in  other  words,  the  Divine  right  of 
kings.  He  was  a  firm  Congregationalist,  and  a  man  of 
liberal  education,  and  high  taste ;  and  it  may  well  be  con- 
ceived that  I  felt  somewhat  doubtful  of  my  own  ears — that 
like  Pharoah,  I  might  awake,  and  behold,  it  would  be  a  puz- 
zling dream.     But  it  was  a  sober  reality  of  open  day. 

"  Snow's  Boston,  p.  197,  2d  edit.  t  F.  Ames's  Works,  p.  518. 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS.  235 

Such  are  some  of  the  results  of  intelligent  apprehension, 
when,  (to  say  nothing  of  discordant  elements  nearer  home,) 
our  American  politicians  see  the  interests  of  the  North  and 
South,  the  East  and  West,  warring  with  each  other,  the  cords 
of  our  Union  swaying  and  cracking  under  their  violence, 
and  dismemberment  visibly  and  audibly  threatened.  Mul- 
titudes think,  that  our  fathers  little  knew  what  they  were 
doing,  when  they  took  it  upon  themselves  to  determine,  that 
that  was  right,  which  was  right  in  their  own  eyes.  For  the 
right  which  they  assumed  to  think  for  themselves  in  reli- 
gion, and  to  act  for  themselves  in  politics,  is  equally  the  right 
of  a  million,  or  ten  million  others;  who  may  be  Mormons  in 
faith,  and  anarchists  in  practice.*  And  already,  therefore, 
seeing  that  this  right  of  boundless  private  judgment  is 
claimed  by  the  lowest  and  least  intelligent,  they  begin  to 
dream  of  Jack  Cade  and  his  exemplary  myrmidons.  Their 
purse  draws  back  with  inward  horror,  and  startles  at  destruc- 
tion. Heaven  forbid,  they  cry,  that  we  precipitate  our- 
selves into  the  gulph  of  lawlessness — that  Maelstrom  of  na- 
tions !  But  Heaven  stays  not  for  an  individual,  or  an  em- 
pire, the  laws  of  nature  in  any  department  of  creation.  An 
acre  weary  of  dependence  upon  a  mountain's  side,  may  not 
enjoy  the  liberty  of  overlaying  the  plain  below,  but  by  be- 
coming ruinous,  and  entailing  ruin  on  itself.  The  level- 
ing and  revolving  system  in  politics — the  system  of  depres- 
sing the  rich  and  elevating  the  poor — of  turning  out  the 
skilful  and  putting  in  the  uninitiated,  for  the  sake  of  change 
— of  making  the  clergy,  who  tell  us  more  religious  truth,  to 
say  the  least,  than  any  body  else  does — of  making  them  hire- 
lings by  the  year,  or  month  ;  and  the  judge,  who  speaks  the 
voice  of  justice,    dependent   on   an  annual    partisan  vote, 

*  "  Civil  liberty,"  said  Bishop  Butler,  the  great  author  of  the  Analogy, 
in  1740,  "  the  liberty  of  a  community,  is  a  severe  and  a  restrained  thing  ; 
implies  in  the  notion  of  it,  authority,settled  subordinations,  &c." — Works, 
ii.  327.     This  was  toryism  then;  it  would  be  called  conservatism  noto. 


236  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

may  put  a  state  of  tilings  in  motion,  which  half  our  race, 
gifted  with  the  might  of  Hercules,  the  sagacity  of  Solon, 
and  the  perseverance  of  St.  Paul,  could  neither  retard  nor 
guide.  There  is  a  torrent  of  human  passion,  which,  once 
allowed  to  overflow,  can  no  more  be  arrested,  than  could  the 
sweeping  of  the  tide  by  the  royal  Dane.  Who  by  and  by 
there  may  be  to  rejoice  in  the  doctrine,  that  "  rebellion  to 
tyrants  is  obedience  to  God,''  or  any  other  doctrine  of  un- 
bounded liberty  and  unrestrained  resistance,  taught  by  the 
Puritans  of  the  last  and  the  preceding  century,  is  concealed 
beneath  a  dark  horizon.  But  it  is  no  mis-statement,  it  is 
no  extravagance  to  say,  that  many  of  the  brightest  sons 
of  Puritan  lineage  fear,  that  in  less  than  a  half  century,  the 
fifty,  the  forty,  the  twenty,  nay  the  ten  such  will  not  be 
found — that  our  soil,  fattened  with  the  martyr-blood  of  1776, 
will  be  furrowed  with  the  thunder  of  revolution,  and  our  glo- 
rious republics  have  vanished  like  the  cities  of  the  plain, 
and  beneath  a  storm  only  not  worse  than  that  which  buried 
them  in  a  grave  of  fire.  See  how  emphatically  the  states- 
man Everett  warns  his  countrymen,  within  the  very  purlieus 
of  Bunker's  memorable  mount :  "It  is  not  too  much  to  say, 
that  there  are,  at  this  moment,  noble  spirits  in  the  elder 
world,  who  are  anxiously  watching  the  march  of  our  institu- 
tions, to  learn  whether  liberty,  as  they  have  been  told,  is  a 
mockery,  a  pretence,  and  a  curse;  or  a  blessing, for  which  it 
becomes  them  to  brave  the  rack,  the  scaffold,  and  the  scim- 
etar."  But  half  a  century  endows  us  with  the  liberty  of  un- 
checked freedom,  ere  languaore  like  this  must  be  held,  (it 
was  delivered  July  4,  1828,)  "  upon  the  green  turf  once 
Avet  with  precious  blood ;"  not  shed  to  gain  triumph  for  un- 
limited wills,  but,  notice  the  careful  limitation,  **  the  sacred 
cause  of  constitutional  liberty."* 

And  yet,  we  are  told,  that  deficient  or  bad  as  the  Puri- 

*  Everett's  Orations,  &.c.  p.  162. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  237 

tans  might  have  been,  in  a  hundred  other  particulars,  they 
merit  the  highest  niche  of  glory  for  resistance  to  tyranny ; 
for  untrammeliing  human  opinion  and  human  will,  in  reli- 
gion and  politics,  and  allowing  each  full  scope  to  do  its  own 
behests.  Must  we  not  still  wait,  ere  we  can  give  this  plaudit 
unqualified  acquiescence  ?  After  going  over  such  details,  as 
have  here  been  supplied  us,  might  not  one  suspect  them,  as 
the  Romanist  James  II.  was  suspected,  of  advocating  even 
freedom  of  conscience  from  selfish  and  sinister  motives  ?  * 

But  I  will  not  dwell  upon  a  strain,  which  may  lay  myself 
open  to  a  suspicion  of  political  preferences  and  partisanship, 
which  I  neither  feel  nor  entertain.  I  desire  not  to  be  called 
by  any  name  now  current  among  aspirants  after  office  or 
power  ;  for  I  dare  not  profess  or  esteem  myself,  a  party  poli- 
tician. I  trust  I  love,  as  truly  as  many  who  make  louder 
boasts,  my  father-land ;  and  yet  all  its  privileges  are  nothing 
tome,  in  comparison  to  citizenship  in  the  Jerusalem  which  is 
above.  I  would  merely  be  a  suggester  of  the  opinion  of 
others,  who  arrogate  far  higher  political  wisdom  than  I  shall 
ever  pretend  to,  that  the  community  which  propounds  and 
defends  the  doctrine,  that  self-willed  freedom,  in  one  way,  is 
lawfully  to  be  striven  for,  nay,  fought  for,  may  encourage  its 
successors,  as  the  world  is  going  on  in  development  unto  per- 
fection, to  heighten  and  widen  the  doctrine,  by  discovering 
some  new  way  of  being  freer,  until  the  end  is  emancipation 
from  all  law,  and  prostration  of  the  distinctions  of  the  social 
state.  Something  like  this,  Mr.  Dana  the  poet,  the  philoso- 
pher, and  in  theology,  I  suppose,  a  Puritan,  predicted  and 
portrayed,  years  now  gone  by.t  And  following  after  him, 
haud  passibus  cequis,  my  wish  is  to  show,  that  many  of  our 
own  times,  and  while  breathing  a  New  England  atmosphere, 
are  this  moment  retreating  from  that  self-enlarging  liberty, 

*  Boucher's  Disc.  p.  60. 

t  On  "  Law  as  suited  to  Man."— Bib.  Repos.  and  Quart.  Observer 
No.  xvii.  January,  1835. 

11* 


238  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

which,  however  manageable  with  sugar  of  lead  for  posset, 
and  iron  stays  for  a  girdle,  in  the  days  when  Calvinism  was 
fundamental  law,  has  at  last  grown  so  fat  and  saucy  as  to 
kick  like  Jeshurun.     (Deut.  xxxii.  15.) 


LETTER  XII. 


The  discursive  plan  pursued  in  the  last  letter  must  be 
followed  still.     I   shall   continue   stating  matters,   without 
particular  reference  to  time  or  order ;   some  of  which,  per- 
haps, have  no  direct  historical  connexion  with  Episcopalians, 
but  all  of  which  go  to  illustrate  the  system,  that  condemns 
them   and   upbraided  their   forefathers,   and   all   of  which, 
therefore,  an  Episcopalian  may  fairly  bring  forward  in  self- 
defence,  to  teach  his   assailants  to  be  quiet   and  look  at 
home.     It  may  be  important  for  me  to  state  afresh,  (to  keep 
the  idea  alive,)  that  these  letters  are  by  no  means  under- 
taken as  an  act  of  aggression,  or  with  an  aggressive  spirit. 
But  when  there  is  no  other  way  of  diverting  an  adversary, 
who  has  kept  talking  on  steadily,  for  two  centuries,  about 
Episcopal  tyranny,  corruption,  and  cruelty,  it  may,  at  last, 
possibly,  be  admitted  as  right  to  try  to  open  his  eyes  upon 
some  unread  passages  in  his  own  annals,  that  ought  to  make 
him  a  trifle  more  considerate  of  his  neighbors.     I  see  a  late 
writer,  in  one  of  our  journals,  complaining  that  Episcopacy 
is  still  systematically  insulted,  in  orations,  songs,  and  toasts, 
poured  forth  over  Puritan  reminiscences.     There  seems  to 
be  no  other  mode  left  to  teach  some  to  look  away  from  our 
magnified  faults,  but  by  calling  the  public  to  look  at  their 
forgotten  ones.     If  this  be  not  lawful,  then  it  would  hardly 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  239 

be  legitimate  to  say,  "  He  that  is  without  sin  among  you, 
let  him  cast  the  first  stone." 

In  my  tenth  Letter,  the  petition  of  Roger  Price  and 
others  was  referred  to,  to  show  how  Episcopalians  were,  at 
so  late  a  period  as  1731,  treated  with  less  lenity  than  Ana- 
baptists and  Quakers.*  One  of  the  chief  complaints  of  Mr. 
Price  and  his  associates  was,  that  Episcopalians  were  not 
allowed  the  common  privileges  of  the  elective  franchise. 
In  the  Danforth  papers,t  the  King's  Commissioners  are 
found  complaining,  that  the  Puritans  raised  the  qualifica- 
tion for  the  elective  franchise,  to  a  price  which  "  not  one 
English  member  in  a  hundred"  paid.  |  In  fact,  it  is  affirmed 
by  Justice  Story,  as  already  quoted,  that  so  late  as  1676, 
(eleven  years  after  the  King's  remonstrance  through  his  of- 
ficers !)  ''  five  sixths  of  the  Colony  were  disfranchised  by 
the  influence  of  the  ecclesiastical  power."  My  readers 
should  carefully  mark  the  expression,  "  the  ecclesiastical 
power  ;"  for  the  eminently  astute  jurist,  who  commented  on 
the  case,  perfectly  understood  the  source  of  the  enormous 
evil,  and  accurately  assigns  it.  And  with  so  high  an  au- 
thority as  a  preface,  perhaps  I  may  as  well  here,  as  any 
where,  make  a  few  remarks,  as  my  subject  requires  me  to 
do  somewhere,  upon  the  influence  of  the  Puritan  min- 
isters. 

We  hear  much  about  the  priestcraft  of  Popery,  and  of 
its  "  abomination  of  desolation."  In  relation  to  Episcopacy, 
the  Puritans  did  not  hesitate  to  aver,  that  "  it  is  come  to  an 
ordinary  proverb,  that  when  any  thing  is  spoiled  we  use  to 
say,  '  The  bishop's  foot  hath  been  in   it ;' "    and  that  the 

*  In  1722,  the  Governor  of  Massachusetts  ordered  the  Puritans  of 
Newburyport  not  to  tax  Churchmen. — Caleb  Cushing's  Newburyport, 
p.  45.     Still,  here  in  1731,  they  were  crying  for  relief  as  loud  as  ever. 

t  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  series,  viii.  76. 

t  Yet  the  story  is,  the  English  laws  were  severer  than  Puritan  ones. 
— Kingsley'a  Disc.  p.  49. 


240  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS'. 

Episcopal  office  was  but  **  a  stirrup  for  Antichrist  to  get 
into  the  saddle."*  But  was  there  never  such  a  thing  as 
priestcraft,  in  the  palmy  days  of  New  England  history?  did 
not  the  pastoral  office  of  the  Puritanical  parsons  serve  as  a 
stirrup  for  a  virtual  Inquisition  to  mount  the  saddle,  and, 
like  Death  on  the  pale  horse,  to  ride  over  the  land  scatter- 
ing infernal  terrors  ?     Let  us  see. 

The  Puritanical  ministers  of  New  England  tampered 
with  the  affairs  of  State,  as  incessantly  and  perseveringly,  as 
the  most  meddling  Jesuits  ;  and,  until  a  late  day,  always 
influentially.f  Even  Endicott  and  others,  though  knighted 
by  the  chivalrous  President  Stiles  for  their  "  hearts  of  oak," 
had  their  ghostly  oracles,  who  made  them  pliant  as  willow 
wands ;  disciplined  and  moulded  them  with  the  illimitable 
power  of  father  confessors.  Did  there  happen  to  occur  a 
juncture,  or  a  difficulty,  of  more  than  ordinary  pressure — 
''  the  elders  did  not  fail  to  attend  in  the  gloomy  season. "| 
The  elders  presumed  to  interpret  *'  the  mind  of  God."§ 
Some  have  supposed  that  the  Puritans  and  the  Dutch  were, 
or,  (for  gratitude's  sake,)  ought  to  be  "  chief  friends." 
Nevertheless,  the  elders  imputed  to  the  Dutch  an  **  execra- 
ble plot,  tending  to  the  destruction  of  the  dear  saints  of 
God."  *'  In  the  name  of  many  pensive  hearts,"  these  same 
ministers  of  the  Prince  of  Peace  could  solicit  the  Govern- 
ment to  overwhelm  these  same  "  chief  friends,"  with  all  the 
horrors  of  war.]]  And  under  such  powerful  sacerdotal 
rhetoric  no  doubt  it  was,  that  even  Massachusetts,  at  first 
scrupulous  about  a  war,  because  most  of  the  money  to  sus- 
tain it  must  have  come  from  her  own  pocket,  at  length 
yielded,  and  devoted  the  poor  Dutch  to  absolute  extirpation.^ 
But  why  should  not  all   this  be,  or  even  more  1     For  the 

*  Smectymnuus,  pp.  30,  77,  7S. — For  some  account  of  this  book,  see 
Gen.  Biog.  Diet,  of  Bernard,  &:c.  iv.  24,  notes. 

t  Story's  Misc.  p.  64.  t  Bancroft,  i.  440. 

§  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  167.  |1  Ibid.  167,  168.        IT  Ibid.  i.  170. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  '^41 

elders,  according  to  a  pithy  little  note  of  Hutchinson, 
**  turned  the  scale"  of  civil  government  "  from  the  begin- 
ning," until  a  number  of  years  after  the  issue  of  the  com- 
mission of  King  Charles  II.  Nothing  but  a  royal  governor 
could  counterpoise  their  habitual  '*  balance."*  And  even 
a  royal  governor  had  to  propitiate  their  potential  favor  "  in 
civil  things,"  had  to  unfold  ''  with  all  plainness  the  reasons 
of"  his  "  procedure,  and  that  they  may  be  satisfactory"  to 
those,  who  were  the  unprescribed  keepers  of  his  conscience, 
with  powers  not  inferior  to  the  Lord  Chancellor,  who  keeps 
the  royal  conscience,  under  the  solemnities  of  legal  respon- 
sibility. And,  moreover,  when  the  period  arrived  that  their 
direct  sway  became  feebler  or  intermittent,  they  were  still 
slow  to  abdicate  vested  rights,  and  presumed  to  advise,  ad- 
monish, or  denounce,  the  representative  of  kingly  majesty. 
Especially,  if  he  dared  to  forget  due  court  to  those  who  sat 
in  "  Moses'  seat,"  he  might  be  stoutly  rebuked  in  the  style 
pontifical ;  and  if  he  heeded  not  the  decretals  of  sacerdotal 
self-sufficiency,  he  might  be  branded  as  a  wretch,  in  a 
private  journal,  intended  as  a  record  of  the  free  effusions  of 
a  pure  and  peaceful  heart.t 

Nor  was  it  a  governor  only,  whom  the  elders  could 
benefit  with  their  patronizing  counsel ;  like  Cardinal  Pro- 
tectors of  the  different  courts  of  Europe  at  the  ecclesiastical 
centre — Rome.f  Legislatures,  also,  were  entitled  to  its 
eleemosynary  honors. §  And  when  a  diplomatic  document, 
and,  by  easy  parity  of  reasoning,  any  other  important  pub- 
lic document,  did  not  please  the  elders,  or  touched  the 
purity  of  their  (lawn  I  suppose  I  must  not  say,  but  silk 
probably  might  be  admissible;  for  silks  were  no  such  strange 

*  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  303. — Compare  Upham  on  the  King,  in  his  Life  of 
Vane,  p.  352.     Bancroft  on  the  Ministers. — United  States,  iii.  74. 
t  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  series,  iii.  137,  138. 
X  See  History  of  Cardinals,  translated.     London,  1670,  p.  105. 
§  Hutch.  Collect,  p.  436. 


242  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

things  in  Puritan  times — as  we  shall  see — nor  gowns 
and  bands  either,)  silk,  it  could  be  expunged  by  as  for- 
midable lines,  as  once  blackened  a  Resolution  of  our  Na- 
tional Senate.*  The  elders  were  authorized  to  pronounce 
"  treason  against  the  civil  government,  treason  against 
Christ."f  So  superior  were  they  in  wisdom  to  the  laity, 
less  largely  endued,  (Cotton's  ordination  being  witness,) 
"  as  by  a  sign  from  God,"  that  they  could  revise  juridical 
and  other  decisions,  and  give  them  the  **  tower  stamp"  of 
their  infallible  imprimatur.^  They  so  faithfully  copied  the 
model,  which  Justice  Story  says  they  virtually  re-enacted, 
i.  e.,  the  Inquisition,  that  they  could  imitate  one  of  its  fa- 
vorite practices  at  an  Auto  da  Fe.  They  could  compel 
sentenced  convicts,  as  it  were  in  articulo  mortis,  to  listen 
to  wholesome  homilies  upon  that  authority,  which  doomed 
them  for  heresy  or  contumacy.^  "  Nor,"  says  Mr.  Ban- 
croft, at  a  moment  when  their  "  mists"  of  persecution  be- 
came so  thick  that  even  he  could  not  pierce  through  them, 
"  Nor  can  it  be  denied,  nor  should  it  be  concealed,  that  the 
elders,  especially  Wilson  and  Norton,  instigated  and  sus- 
tained the  Government  in  its  worst  cruelties," ||  So  that  he 
subjoins,  in  another  such  moment,  a  triumphant  vindication 
of  a  name,  calumniated  by  Puritans  more  than  all  the  vic- 
tims of  their  defamation  put  together.  **  Laud,"  says  this 
devoted  apologist  of  Puritanical  history,  when  its  incon- 
sistencies temporarily  overpowered  him,  ''  Laud  was  justi- 
fied BY  THE  MEN  WHOM  HE  HAD  WRONGED."^} 

*  Savage's  Wint.  i.  286.  t  Bancroft,  i.  450. 

X  Ibid.  i.  440. — They  must  be  consulted,  ere  a  body  of  laws  can  be 
made.  Hubbard,  157.  And  Benedict  says,  they  could  induce  magis- 
trates to  resist  a  king's  mandamus,  when  it  required  ecclesiastical  charity. 
— Benedict's  Baptists,  i.  400. 

§  Savage's  Wint.  ii.  142,  238,  notes. 

11  For  example,  they  petitioned  the  legislature  to  pass  an  act  to  banish 
Quakers  on  pain  of  death. — Gough's  Quakers,  i.  371. 

IT  Bancroft,  i.  447,451. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  243 

Yes,  most  truly,  Laud,  with  crosier  and  mitre,  was  never 
more  puissant,  than  a  Puritan  ministry  under  the  **  ceremo- 
nial! accoutrements"  of  Genevan  orthodoxy.  The  Puritan 
pulpit,  and  not  the  forum,  was  the  arena  for  legislation  :  the 
pulpit,  and  not  the  court,  the  bed  of  justice.  And  Hubbard, 
whom  I  have  before  quoted,  but  must  re-quote,  in  trying  to 
eulogize  his  brethren.  Hooker  and  Cotton,  lets  this  unsavory 
fact  leak  out.  They  were  "Two  such  eminent  stars," 
"  both  of  the  first  magnitude,  though  of  differing  influence," 
that  they  "  could  not  well  continue  in  one  and  the  same 
orb."  This  is  a  very  grandiloquent  way  of  translating  the 
old  proverb,  about  disagreement  between  those  of  the  same 
trade.  Hooker  would  not  be  outshone  by  Cotton,  and  so  he 
went  to  Hartford,  Connecticut;*  and  then  verified  the 
praise,  as  Hubbard  thought  it,  of  Cotton  at  Boston,  (though 
in  England  it  would  have  been  Laudean,  and  in  France  or 
Spain,  Jesuitical,)  of  having  "  whatever  he  delivered  in  the 
pulpit,"  '*  soon  put  into  an  order  of  court,  if  of  a  civil,  or 
set  up  as  a  practice  in  the  church,  if  of  an  ecclesiastical 
concernment."! 

This  same  pulpit,  too,  under  the  auspices  of  such  men 
as  Cotton  of  Boston,  Hooker  of  Hartford,  and  Davenport 
of  New  Haven,  (Puritan  Dii  majorum  gentium,)\  extended 
its  tutelage  far  and  wide.  "  Shadowing  with  wings,"  it 
could  take  the  ceremonies  of  social  life  under  its  cogniz- 
ance, and    with   the  pluripresent  supervision  and   unpaid 


*  The  Presbyterian  Dr.  Robertson  agrees  with  me  in  this.  (See 
America,  book  x.)  It  cannot  but  amuse  an  impartial  observer,  to  see 
how  soon  the  spirit  of  Diotrephes  exhibited  itself  among  the  vociferous 
proclaimers  of  ministerial  parity  !  "  Diotrephenism,"  as  Mr.  Hart  called 
it  in  his  critique  on  Noah  Hobart,  found  many  a  snug  nook  and  corner 
in  a  land  which  abhorred  dioceses. 

t  Hubbard,  pp.  173,  182. 

X  Or,  as  Cotton  Mather  calls  them,  olive-trees  which  afford  a  singu- 
ar  measure  of  oil. — Magnalia,  i.  243. 


244  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

kindness  of  the  "  Holy  Office,"  became   a  director  even  of 
the  ton.     The  pulpit  preached  on,  or  it  preached  off,  wigs 
and  veils^^ — raised  its  tonsorial   voice,  and  away  flew  curls 
and   queues,  like   the  thistle-down  before   the   whirlwind ; 
and  craniums  were  as  round  and  smooth  as  that  time-honor- 
ed vegetable,  which  has  graced  and  gladdened  ten  thousand 
thousand  thanksgiving  dinners.     *'  The  use  of   tobacco," 
in  Puritanism's  days  of  purity ^  "  was  prohibited,"  says  Dr. 
Morse,  "  under  a  penalty,*  and  the   smoke  of  it,  in   some 
manuscripts,  is  compared  to  the  smoke  of  the  bottomless 
pit."     But  mark  what  he  says  becomes  of  it,  when  the  oc- 
cupants of  Puritan  pulpits  unfortunately  got   an  inkling  of 
the  vile  weed,  and  to  their  astonishment  found  in  it  creature- 
comfort.     "  At  length,"  he   adds,  **  some  of  the  clergy  fell 
into  the  practice  of  smoking,  and  tobacco  by  an  act  of  gov- 
ernment was  set  at  liberty."!     As  if  the  occupants  of  such 
a  throne  could  do  more  than  a  Pope  ever  pretended  to,  in 
the  days  of  a  Hildebrand,  turn  the  smoke  of  the  bottomless 
pit  into  a  sweet-smelling  savor  !    But  the  pulpit  could  do  more 
than  make  tobacco  orthodox.     It  became  a  mint  altogether 
matchless  for  the  current  coin  of  superstition.     It  condens- 
ed  airy  witch-craft   into  a  tangible  reality,  and  decreed  an 
Indian  war  to  be  Heaven's  special  judgment  upon  wigs  and 
scratches. ^^  J     Let  those  remember  this,  who  can  talk  so 
clamorously  about  Ap.  Laud's  superstitious  conversion  of 
trifling  incidents  into  solemn  providences — a  common  com- 
plaint against  his  diary  ;  though  not  more  justly  complained 
of  in  him,  than  in   almost  every  body  in  that  peculiar   age. 
And  if  that  is  not  sufficient,  let  them  remember  that  when 

9<  See  Note  94.  ^^  See  Note  95. 

*  A  man  might  smoke  in  his  own  house,  provided  he  was  alone  !  If 
he  smoked  before  even  an  acquaintance,  he  was  fined. — Felt's  Ipswich, 
p.  41. 

t   Geog.  p.  187.  X  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  series,  viii.  27. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  245 

a  snake  crawled  into  the  famous  synod  of  1G4S,  in  the  heat 
of  its  ecclesiastical  legislation,  it  was  supposed  the  very 
devil  had  insinuated  himself  there :  an  instance  of  theologi- 
cal conjecture,  in  which  some  perhaps  will  not  accuse  them 
of  the  Athenian  error  of  being  ''  too  superstitious."* 

Well  therefore  does  Mr.  Bancroft  write,  illustrating  Pu- 
ritan inconsistency  as  well  as  his  own,  (for  I  should  suppose 
him  sarcastic  if  I  did  not  know  his  strong  bias,)  "  The  colo- 
nists of  Massachusetts  had  emigrated  for  the  enjoyment  of 
purity  of  religion  :  and  while  they  scrupulously  refused  to 
the  clergy  even  the  least  shadow  of  political  power,  they 
deliberately  entrusted  the  whole  government  to  those  of  the 
laity,  over  whose  minds  the  ministers  would  probably  exert 
an  unvarying  infiucnce^i  '*  Ecclesia  abhorret  a  sanguine" 
— the  Church  dreads  the  sight  of  blood — said  the  Jesuit  of 
his  Church,  when  she  employed  the  hands  of  others  to  ac- 
complish her  sanguinary  designs.  The  Puritan  and  his 
champions  may,  with  equally  felicitous  logic,  exculpate  the 
New  England  elders  from  the  unlawful  exercise  of  civil  or 
political  power.  They  only  advised^  as  the  late  Dr.  Wor- 
cester of  Salem,  Mass.,  tells  us  was  done  by  the  great  Ecu- 
menical Council,  in  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles — an  assembly  which  he,  in  one  of  his  sermons, 
would  fain  convert  into  such  a  council  of  imbecility,  as 
Congregationalists  are  in  the  habit  of  summoning  at  the  pre- 
sent  day.     But,   too    often,   this   meek  and  gentle  advice 

*  Savage's  Winthrop,  ii.  330. 

t  Bancroft,  i.  391. — This  is  from  Bancroft's /rsf  edition  of  his  United 
States.  I  am  sorry  to  be  obliged  again  to  notice  his  disingenuousness  ;  but 
the  instance  is  too  glaring  to  be  passed  by.  For  all  which  I  have  now 
quoted,  the  seventh  edition  gives  us  this :  "  The  Calvinists  of  Massachu- 
setts, scrupulously  refusing  to  the  clergy  the  least  shadow  of  political 
power,  established  the  reign  of  the  visible  church — a  commonwealth  of 
the  chosen  people  in  covenant  with  God." — Seventh  edit.  vol.  i.  p.  361. 
It  is  useless  to  comment  on  an  historian  who  will  thus  belie  himself;  he 
is  his  own  best  refutation. 


246  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

claimed  all  the  dignity  and  sway  of  that  Council's  synodical 
letter,  and,  with  a  proud  humility,  became  all  which  its  let- 
ter both  was  and  professed  to  be,  (Dr.  W.  did  not  read  far 
enough,)  **  decrees  for  to  keep.''     (Acts  xvi.  4.) 

Oh,  most  mournfully  true  was  it,  that  a  generation  which 
had  called  prelacy  a  stirrup  for  Antichrist  to  get  into  the 
saddle,  were  ridden  by  the  bit  and  bridle  of  an  anti-prelatic 
priesthood,  who,  if  "  mocked  "  by  insubordination,  as  Ba- 
laam supposed  himself  "  mocked,"  could  more  than  wish  a 
sword  into  their  hands  to  avenge  their  depreciated  honors. 
Nevertheless,  says  Mr.  Bacon,  balking  not  at  a  camel,  when 
he  had  strained  out  many  a  gnat :  "  I  hesitate  not  to  say, 
that  no  instance  can  be  found  in  the  history  of  man,  in 
which  the  ministers  of  religion,  as  a  body,  have  so  com- 
pletely and  spontaneously  denuded  themselves  of  all  power, 
civil  and  ecclesiastical,  as  was  done  by  the  ministers  of 
New  England."*  Denuded  themselves  of  all  power,  civil 
and  ecclesiastical  ?  Ah,  what  a  sweet  romantic  dream,  if  it 
could  have  been  indulged  by  such  as  Gorton,  or  Vassall,  the 
petitioners  of  1646,  or  even  those  of  1731  ;  to  say  nothinor 
of  Quakers,  ct  id  omne  genus !  Nay,  not  less  sweet  if  it 
could  have  been  indulged  in  by  many  of  their  very  selves, 
not  gifted,  Wilson-wise  or  Cotton-wise,  as  by  a  sign  from 
God  !  But  it  might  not  be.  The  sturdy  son  of  freedom, 
who  would  not  bow  the  head  at  the  Name  of  Jesus,  nor 
bend  the  knee  before  the  pledges  of  his  love,  had  to  bow, 
and  bend,  and  surrender,  (like  the  votary  of  a  Romish 
monastic  order  to  his  Superior,)  to  a  priest  created  by  his 
spiritual  ballot-box. 

This  may  seem  contradictory,  but  is  easily  explained. 
The  Puritans  were  deliberately  taught,  that  the  magistracy 
and  the  ministry  had  powers  jure  divine,  which  the  people 
could  neither  give  nor  take  away.     The  people  had  nothing 

*  Address,  p.  34. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  247 

to  do  with  either,  but  to  put  men  into  places  where  they 
would  exercise  powers,  accorded  to  them  by  Heaven  Su- 
preme. That  was  the  true  doctrine — that  was  the  undi- 
luted orthodoxy,  of  the  days  of  the  golden  age.  The  mo- 
dern doctrine,  that  the  people  were  the  source  of  power, 
was  utterly  discountenanced.  The  people  could  give  place 
only.  Power  came  from  God  alone;  and  to  God  alone 
were  its  possessors  responsible  for  the  exercise  of  its  pre- 
rogatives.* 

Higher  church  doctrine  than  this,  better  passive-obe- 
dience and  non-resistance  doctrine  than  this,  there  could 
not  well  be;  for  it  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Pope's  own  self. 
The  Pope  obtains  his  place  by  election  :  he  is  not  born  to 
it,  nor  does  it  come  to  him  by  any  routine  or  prescription. 
But  i\\Q  poioers  of  his  place  are  underived  from  man,  and  he 
exercises  them  as  the  vicegerent  of  the  Almighty.  Just 
such  a  pope,  (only  he  was  a  petty  one,)  did  the  Puritanical 
minister  conceive  himself:  and  well,  therefore,  like  Cotton, 
might  he  presume  himself  qualified  to  announce  universal 
law. 

No  wonder  that  under  such  tuition,  even  an  outward 
secular  distinction  should  be  decreed  superstitious,  and  an 
attempt  be  made  to  have  saints  militant  feel  that  the  pulpit 
("  drum  ecclesiastic  ")  was  to  give  the  pitch  and  tone  to 
their  rough  trade.  It  is  an  absolute  fact,  that  Endicott, 
(who  was  always  thorough  enough,  after  the  visit  of  the 
Brownistical  doctor  from  Plymouth,  and  a  repeated  experi- 
ence of  his  spiritual  boluses, )t  attacked  the  banner  of  his 
country,  and  caused  the  cross  to  be  torn  out  of  it  as  a  sym- 
bol of  idolatry  !     True,  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  show, 

*  Belknap's  Biog.  ii.  353, 354.  Simple  Cobbler,  new  edit.  pp.  54,55. 
Pemberton's  Sermons,  1727,  pp.  149,  263. — Pemberton  held  also  the 
awful  high-church  doctrine,  that  ordination  conferred  the  ministerial 
powers. — Sermons,  p.  264,  etc. 

1   Gordon's  American  War,  i,  20. 


248  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

that  this  act  was  disapproved  of.*  But  the  issue  speaks 
rather  for  the  triumph  of  clerical  insinuations.  That  cross 
was  never  restored,  though  Endicott  was  nominally  rebuked, 
by  being  dropped  from  office  for  a  little  while.  When  the 
slight  cast  upon  the  king's  colors  was  complained  of  by  the 
officer  of  a  British  ship,  the  Puritans  tried  to  evade  the  diffi- 
culty, by  saying  that  there  were  no  king's  colors  "  in  the 
whole  colony."  They  had,  doubtless,  been  plenty  enough 
just  previously;  and  this  evasion  indirectly  shows  how  thor- 
oughly superstition  had  done  its  work,  by  mutilating  every 
royal  ensign  within  reach.  The  pitiful  evasion,  however, 
did  not  save  them  :  they  were  offered  the  proper  colors  from 
a  British  vessel.  And  now,  driven  to  the  last  nook  of  inge- 
nuity, how  did  they  escape  ?  Why  they  said  the  proper 
standard  might  float  at  the  fort,  as  that  '*  belonged  to  the 
King;"  but  on  shore,  they  could  not  allow  it  because  its 
idolatrous  character  was  indelible. t  And  thus  Endicott, 
with  the  ministers,  was  sustained  at  last,  and  triumphed  glo- 
riously. And,  what  is  very  remarkable,  their  hatred  of  the 
cross  was  so  effectually  transmitted  to  posterity,  that,  on  the 
showing  of  Mr.  Upham,  (who  gives  a  somewhat  amusing 
account  of  the  whole  affair  in  his  life  of  Harry  Vane,)  there 
was  not  a  British  ensign  seen  in  Salem,  where  it  was  first 
dishonored,  till  1834,  and  that  was  borrowed !  | 

Be  all  this,  however,  as  insignificant  as  those  will  think, 
who  remember  not  how  straws  mark  the  currents  of  a 
mighty  atmosphere,  there  is  something  in  Endicotl's  history 
which  shows,  incontestably,  how  his  systematic  self-will  and 
tyranny,  with  those  of  the  virtual  prelates  who  spurred  him 
on,  were  really  agreeable  to  the  people — that  they  made  no 

»  Hubbard,  164,  165. 

t  According  to  Mr.  Felt,  they  were  even  more  "  cute"  than  this.  On 
the  banner  of  the  fort  they  put  the  king's  arms,  instead  of  the  cross. — 
Feh's  Salem,  p.  95. 

X  Sparks'  Amer.  Biog.  first  series,  iv.  Ill,  115. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  249 

long  objection  to  the  poivers  of  him,  or  his  advisers,  i.  e.  his 
father  confessors.  And  this  is  the  notorious  fact,  they  gave 
him  the  place  wherein  to  exercise  his  powers  with  fullest 
scope — the  place  of  Governor.  And  more,  they  made  him 
Governor,  while  office  was  disposable  by  election,  (the 
Charter  of  1691  made  the  Governor  an  officer  of  the  Crown,) 
longer  than  any  other  person.  He  was  removed  from  his 
station  at  the  advanced  age  of  seventy-five,  and  then  only  by 
death  !* 

This  fact  (a  most  marked  and  meaning  one)  suggested 
itself  to  me,  and  was  actually  recorded,  before  I  read  in  the 
angry  criticism  of  a  commentator  on  my  former  papers,  that 
Winthrop  ''  was  eleven  times  chosen  Governor  of  the  Colo- 
ny ;  the  best  of  all  proofs  that  his  Puritan  brethren  w^ere 
pleased  with  his  spirit  and  sentiments."  I  was  about  to 
draw  a  similar  inference,  from  better  premises,  in  relation 
to  Endicott,  the  tool  of  clerical  superstition,  and  the  greedy 
imbiber  of  peppery  orthodoxy.  My  critic  threw  himself  in 
ray  way,  at  an  unfortunate  juncture,  and  ventured,  without 
knowing  his  hazard,  to  supply  me  with  "ahe  best  of  all 
proofs"  that  my  inference  was  a  right  one.  It  was  with 
some  commiseration  that  I  turned  his  own  weapon  against 
his  own  breast ;  but  truth  required  it,  and  the  smart,  doubt- 
less taught  him  future  caution,  for  I  never  heard  from  him 
again,  unless  in  the  shape  of  an  abusive  allegation  which  re- 
quired no  answer. 

The  mistake,  too,  about  Winthrop's  term  of  office  was 
not  the  only  one  made  by  my  heedless  censor.  He  was 
equally  mistaken  about  the  disinterested  partiality  of  the 
Puritans  in  his  behalf  Winthrop  was  indeed  a  matchless 
Governor  for  them  in  one  way ;  of  all  others  the  chariest  in 

*  Savage's  Winthrop,  i.  26,  note.  Compare  Eliot's  Diet.  p.  195. 
And  Oldmixon's  Brit.  Emp.  in  America,  on  Endicott  and  Bellingham,  i. 
107.  He  was  a  bitter  whig  ;  and  yet  he  says  they  were  both  as  bad  as 
Archbishop  Laud. 


250  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

their  consideration.  He  was  rich.  He  could  serve  without 
pay,  and  would  receive  no  presents  *  But,  says  Belknap, 
"  before  he  left  England"  he  **  was  of  a  more  catholic  spirit 
than  some  of  his  brethren. "t  He  was  the  foremost  signer  of 
that  celebrated  letter,  which  **  has  occasioned  a  dispute, 
whether  the  first  settlers  of  Massachusetts  were  of  the 
Church  of  England  or  not."|  He  was  suspected  of  a  design, 
of  at  least  a  desire,  to  have  his  office  a  perpetuity,  like  a 
bishopric  or  a  monarchy. §^^  Therefore,  as  New  England- 
ers  sometimes  say,  he  was  ousted;  and  once  with  most  scan- 
ty ceremony.  II 

But,  to  pursue  the  train  of  thought  respecting  one,  whom 
the  Elders  loved  much  better ;  for  they  had  opposed  Win- 
throp's  aspirations  after  perpetual  office,  because  there  was 
(then  fearfully)  too  much  of  English  leaven  left  in  him. 
The  governor  for  whom  Puritan  smiles  were  less  capricious, 
the  sanguinary  and  tyrannizing  Endicott,  (a  man  who  had 
the  requisite  **  Christian  apathy  on  soft  affections,"^)  is  said 
by  Dr.  Bentley,  in  his  history  of  Salem,  to  have  lost  the  con- 
fidence of  his  friends  beyond  the  seas.  He  was  rebuked  by 
even  the  urbane  and  pacific  philosopher,  Robert  Boyle.** 
And  it  is  a  notorious  fact,  that  the  King  himself,  through  a 
letter  of  Secretary  Morice,  requested  (not  commanded)  his 
removal  from  office.  Tt  is  true  Endicott  died  before  the  in- 
fluence of  this  letter  could  be  felt ;  yet,  says  Judge  Davis, 

96  See  Note  96. 

*  Prince's  Annals,  Pt.  2,  p.  60.  In  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  series,  vii. — 
Yet  they  could  dispute  his  accounts  for  public  expenditures.  Hutchin- 
son's Hist.  i.  43. 

t  Biog.  ii.  356.  X  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  24. 

§  Savage's  Wint.  i.  299.  ||   Quincy's  Address,  pp.  33,  34. 

H  Such  was  a  part  of  Cotton's  praise.  See  his  epitaph.  Davis's  Mor- 
ton, p.  253. 

**  Savage's  Wint.  i.  56,  note.  Bancroft,  i.  344,  note.  Mass.  Hist. 
Coll.  1st  series,  vi.  245  ;  2d  series,  viii.  50,  51. 


i 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  251 

"  there  can  be  no  doubt  the  royal  intimation  to  his  prejudice 
would  have  been  altogether  disregarded."* 

Thus  it  may  be  perceived,  that  he  is  steadily  chosen 
governor,  through  thick  and  thin,  and  would  have  contin- 
ued to  be  chosen  so,  with  perhaps  brusker  pertinacity,  if 
his  enjoyment  of  office  could  give  uneasiness  to  a  monarch's 
cogitations.  "  Neither  Endicott  t  nor  Dudley,"  says  a 
high  authority,  ''  possessed  what  in  the  present  age  would 
be  called  liberality  of  sentiment  or  urbanity  of  manners."| 
Therefore  they  were  the  fittest  instruments  for  Puritans, 
wherewith  to  ruffle  the  down  of  royalty.  No  people  indeed 
could  be  humbler  than  they,  in  soliciting  royal  charters. 
They  could  then  look  up  to  a  throne  with  awe-struck  eyes, 
and  say,  ''  Most  gracious  and  dread  sovereign :"  this  was 
their  favorite  beginning,  when  they  had  a  boon  to  ask  them- 
selves. And  their  favorite  ending  was,  a  craving  to  be  en- 
rolled among  his  "  Majesty's  most  humble  subjects  and  sup- 
pliants." And  still  none  could  take  a  more  peculiar  satisfac- 
tion, than  they  seemed  to  do,  in  using  a  Charter,  when  once 
obtained,  for  the  discomfort  and  annoyance  of  its  royal  giver, 
and  any  cordially  devoted  to  that  giver,  either  in  religion, 
diplomacy,  or  politics.  Such  was  their  tact  at  evasion, 
(as  the  story  about  the  cross  torn  from  the  royal  colors  may 
illustrate,)  such  their  art  in  interpretation  and  persistance, 
or,  as  they  expressed  it,  in  *'  avoiding  and  protracting,"^ 
that  a  monarch  appeared,  as  a  matter  of  course,  to  grant  a 
charter  at  special  hazard  to  his  own  interests  ;  to  create  a 
party,  ex  officio  hostile  to  his  administration ;  to  establish  a 
petty  sovereignty,  which  would  compete  for  dominion  with 
the  throne  he  sat    upon.     The  recipients   of  this  charter 


*  Davis's  Morton,  p.  317,  note. 

t  Hutchinson  speaks  slightingly  of  Endicott's  "  mental  accomplish- 
ments."— Hutch.  Hist.  i.  22,  note. 

t  Eliot's  Diet.  p.  156.  §  Quincy's  Address,  p.  37. 


252  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

might  transcend  its  powers  ;  but  their  "  magic  daring"* 
was  nothing  but  manly  independence  and  sacred  love  of 
liberty.  A  king's  conscience  was  with  them  a  matter 
no  doubt,  for  mirth  and  laughter ;  but  let  a  king's  com- 
missioner touch  their  own  in  the  minutest  article,  (that 
for  instance  of  keeping  Saturday  night  as  holy  time,)  and 
the  grating  doors  of  a  prison  are  agape  for  him.t  And  in 
this  way  they  could  prove  their  readiness  to  vindicate  the 
Majesty  of  Heaven,  by  making  another's  conscience  submis- 
sive to  their  own.  They  could  also  steadily  and  provoking- 
ly  refuse  a  small  request  of  him,  upon  whose  smiles  a  mis- 
used charter  depended  for  its  very  life,  and  their  readiness 
at  disobliging  would  only  be  a  noble  Roman  firmness. 
But  let  the  giver  of  Charters  think  for  one  instant  of  cir- 
cumscribing privileges,  which  he  believed  to  be  abused — 
let  him  remonstrate  even  with  those  to  whom  a  charter  is 
conceded  as  a  warrant  for  mercy  to  the  heathen,  because 
under  it  they  notwithstanding  persecute  their  own  kindred 
in  name  and  blood,  and  even  so  summer-like  a  temper  as 
Mr.  Greenwood's  grows  frosty,  and  he  talks  about  ''  arro- 
gant styles"  and  "  profligate  tyrants." 

Winthrop,  whom  the  elders  feared  as  a  fixture,  and 
whom  the  people  turned  out  of  oflice  because  he  could  not 
learn  Puritanical  lessons  as  fast  as  Endicott,  was  governor, 
at  one  time  with  another,  eleven  years.  And  this  proves, 
we  are  told,  what  mild,  moderate,  clemency-loving  people 
they  were,  who  endowed  him  with  gubernatorial  honors. 
Oh,  that  the  logic  were  not  built,  like  the  house  of  the  un- 
wise man,  upon  the  sand  !  Winthrop  possessed  fortune, 
and  he  could,  and  having  a  generous  disposition  he  did,  give 
rather  than  receive.     It  was  no  loss,  nor  a  very  severe  vex- 

*  Quincy's  Address,  p.  24. 

t  And  this  was  self-defence  I  See  Quinc\''s  Address,  p.  28.  Then 
the  Court  of  High  Commission  and  the  Star  Chamber  were  but  the  self- 
defensive  tribunals  of  England. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  353 

ation,  to  see  the  salary  which  would  have  been  paid  his 
Excellency,  accumulating  in  the  public  coffers,  against  a 
rainy  day.  It  was  not  one  of  the  most  discomposing  reflec- 
tions, that  the  people's  pockets  would  be  disturbed  the  less, 
because  he  loved  the  more  to  keep  them  full.  The  Puri- 
tans could  feelingly  subscribe  to  the  profession  of  the  an- 
cient inhabitants  of  Delphi.  '*  No  man,  however,  can  recol- 
lect that  ever  we  put  it  to  the  vote,  whether  we  would  accept 
a  donation  or  not;  or  that  ever  anyone  would  have  hindered 
a  person  from  offering  and  presenting  to  us  what  he  pleas- 
ed."* Yet  a  time  arrived,  when  even  such  consider- 
ations were  not  effective.  There  is  one  thing  which  men 
delight  in,  even  beyond  self-interest,  and  that  is  self-will. 
There  may  be  junctures,  when  even  that  interest  can  be  over- 
looked for  the  gratification  of  this  will.  Winthrop  was  one  of 
the  best  governors,  which  Puritanism,  it  can  hardly  be  said 
solicited,  but  with  tolerable  grace  endured. t  But  his  compo- 
sition (peace  to  his  memory  !)  was  dashed  with  some  drops 
of  mercy,  a  few  too  many.  He  could  pity  Roger  Williams, | 
and  give  him  kind  advice  in  secret,  though  in  public 
obliged  to  frown  upon  his  love  of  toleration. §  He  would 
be  courteous  to  La  Tour  and  his  unfortunate  fellow  Papists, 
whom  distress  constrained  to  seek  shelter  in  Boston  Bay. 
Suspicion  fastens  upon  him  her  leaden  eye.  The  timid, 
and  yet  unroughened  temper  of  the  amiable  gentleman  re- 

*  Tooke's  Lucian,  ii.  679,  680. 

t  Even  Mr.  Neal  rouses  up  against  his  scurvy  treatment.  "  The 
peevish  and  froward  people  could  hardly  give  him  a  good  word,  but  were 
ready,  on  every  occasion,  to  censure  him  as  the  author  of  all  the  calamities 
that  befel  them." — New  England,  i.  276. 

X  Poor  Capt.  Partridge,  also,  who  came  near  being  their  victim  for 
heresies,  uttered  out  of  their  jurisdiction.  He  had  spoken  freely  in  his 
own  ship,  on  the  deep ;  and  for  that  he  must  render  an  account  to  pon- 
tifical Massachusetts.  He  professed  to  be  a  Puritan  too. — Savage's  Wint. 
ii.  251. 

§  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  series,  i.  276. 

12 


254  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

treats  before  it.  His  pliancy  is  remembered,  rather  for  his 
injury.  By  and  by,  however,  adapting  himself  somewhat 
to  his  circumstances,  he  grows  bolder.  Now  he  begins  to 
exercise  his  forecast  upon  that  freedom  of  individual  wills, 
which  knows  no  law,  and  will  acknowledge  no  restraint. 
With  him,  it  became  at  length  no  solecism,  that  even  liber- 
ty itself  may  be  too  free :  a  sentiment  which  once  would 
have  been  laughed  to  scorn  by  Puritan  politicians,  but 
which  many  of  their  descendants  now  avow  with  pale  coun- 
tenances and  foreboding  hearts.  Indeed,  this  sentiment  of 
Winthrop's  is  now  rather  common  than  infrequent  on  Puri- 
tan soil ;  from  which  many  an  eye  is  looking  abroad  upon 
the  sea  of  agitations  which  surrounds  it,  and  expecting  ever 
and  anon  to  see  the  fountains  of  the  great  deep  of  anarchy 
and  misrule  burst  their  bounds,  and  deluge  the  world  with 
woe.  He  dreamed,  perhaps,  of  such  a  catastrophe,  two 
hundred  years  ago,  or  caught  an  echo  of  its  coming  across 
the  ocean  ;  for  the  days  of  the  Commonwealth  were  nigh. 
**  There  is,"  said  he,  "  a  liberty  of  corrupt  nature,  which  is 
inconsistent  with  authority,  impatient  of  restraint,  the  ene- 
my of  truth  and  peace,  and  all  the  ordinances  of  God  are 
bent  against  it.  But  there  is  a  civil,  moral,  federal  liberty, 
which  consists  in  every  one's  enjoying  his  property,  and 
having  the  benefit  of  the  laws  of  his  country,  a  liberty  for 
that  only  which  is  just  and  good ;  for  this  liberty  you  are 
to  stand  with  your  lives."  * 

And  for  a  temper  which  cherished  such  doctrine,  what 
was  his  great  reward  ?  That  of  many  who  at  this  day,  the 
moment  they  hint,  though  in  allusions  the  most  distant, 
that  there  may  be  abuses  of  complete  political  indepen- 
dence, and  talk  not  oi  all  freedom,  but,  like  Mr.  Everett,  of 
"constitutional  liberty,"  are  forthwith  branded  as  aristo- 
crats :  not  even   the  most  undoubted  Puritan  lineage  prov- 

*  Allen's  Biog.  Diet,  p   784. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  255 

ing  a  democratic  salvation.  Winthrop  was  once  suspected 
of  aspiring  to  something  like  a  sceptre,*  and  had  to  lay 
down  the  wand  of  office  with  summary  expedition.  After- 
terward,  it  is  true,  it  was  restored  to  him  ;  but  not,  says  Mr. 
Quincy,  till  he  and  his  successors  and  fellow-thinkers  had 
received  "  a  succession  of  lessons,  for  which  they  were 
probably  the  wiser  the  rest  of  their  lives."t 

But  Endicott,  (that  "  deep  enthusiast"  as  Dr.  Robertson 
called  him,  and  whose  conduct  Graham  stigmatizes  as  "  ri- 
otous and  violent,"!)  either  knew  better  how  to  manage  the 
Puritans ;  or,  which  is  far  more  probable,  heartily  coincid- 
ed with  them.  He  was  unquestionably  much  the  inferior 
of  Winthrop,  in  all  respects,  unless  it  were  brute  courage  ; 
but  he  was,  as  unquestionably,  in  the  intensest  meaning  of 
the  terms,  a  people's  man.  And  the  people's  reciprocation 
of  idolatry  was  richly  manifested,  in  his  life-long  enjoyment 
of  their  highest  office,  and  in  frequent  substantial  remem- 
brancers, in  the  shape  of  "entire  property  in  soil."^^  He 
well  understood,  and  faithfully  upheld,  those  principles 
which  the  people  most  devoutly  cherished.  "  Principles  of 
aggrandizement,"  says  Mr.  George  Chalmers,  (one  who,  by 
his  researches  in  the  Plantation  Office,§  was  enabled  to  form 
opinions  on  that  evidence,  which  Mr.  Bancroft  and  others 
would  appropriate  to  themselves,  viz.  documentary  testimony,') 
"  Principles  of  aggrandizement  seem  constantly  to  have  been 
had  in  view  by  Massachusetts,  as  the  only  rule  of  its  con- 
duct."§     His  dream  for  posterity  was  like  the  oracle  of  old, 

Omnia,  sub  pedibus,  qua  Sol  utrumque  recurrens 
Aspicit  Oceanum,  vertique  regique  videbunt.lT 

97  See  Note  97. 

*  Quincy's  Address,  p.  33.     Also  Savage's  Winthrop,  i.  86. 
f   Quincy's  Address,  p.  34.  X  North  America,  i.  269. 

§  Pref.  to  his  Annals,  pp.  iii.and  iv.      ||  Ibid.  p.  180. 
IT  iEneid,  vii.  100. 


256  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

Taking  such  principles  and  such  a  dream,  as  his  guides, 
and  their  object,  for  his  watchword,  Endicott  pressed  to- 
wards the  prize  of  his  sect,  with  a  steadiness  like  that  of 
the  magnet  for  its  pole.  It  was  less  his  private  life,  than 
his  signal  devotion  to  the  grand  scheme  of  preserving  and 
transmitting  a  national  religion,  which  made  "  the  Patri- 
arch David"  a  man  after  God's  own  heart.  And,  in  strict 
keeping  with  this  true  and  just  interpretation  of  that  proverb- 
bial  phrase,  (which  is  otherwise  a  hook  for  sceptics  to  hang 
doubts  on,)  Endicott  was  a  man  after  the  inmost  heart, 
of  the  "  engrasping,"  self-aggrandizing  spirits  of  his  age  and 
clime.  Oh,  he  was  indeed  too  appositely  fitted  to  be  such. 
His  bigotry  seemed  to  be  all  over  gnarled  and  knotted ;  so 
that  if  he  had  had  poetical  justice  inflicted  on  him,  by  such 
a  censor  as  Dante,  he  might  have  been  converted  into  one 
of  those  frightful  crab-trees,  where  he  supposes  some  souls 
imprisoned,  and  whose  branches  were  roosts  for  harpies.*  His 
temper  was  of  that  porcupine  description,  which  Pope  Gan- 
ganelli,  in  the  expressive  letters  ascribed  to  him,  has  liken- 
ed to  a  chestnut-burr.  He  was  thorny  on  all  sides.  His 
lighter  touch  was  dangerous  ;  and  even  his  fist,  as  one 
Dexter  discovered  to  his  sorrow,  could  be  as  lively  as  that  of 
an  athlete  with  his  iron  glove.t — With  such  pre-eminent  qual- 
ifications for  persecution,  he  conjoined  an  eager  and  always 
foreseeing  eye. J  This  he  had  fixed  perpetually  upon  the 
end  of  his  vocation  ;  and  seizing  that  in  will  and  hope,  when 
he  could  do  no  more,  he  was  so  absorbed  in  the  raptures 
of  anticipation,  that,  like  a  thorough  Jesuit,  he  was  honestly 
uncareful  about  the  means  which  would  realize  his  longings. 

Did  Churchmen  cross  his  path  ?     Their  property  melted 

*  Carey's  Dante,  i.  67.  Compare  Smith's  letter  to  him,  quoted  by 
Gough. — Gough's  Quakers,  ii.  46. 

t  Lewis's  Hist,  of  Lynn,  p.  39. — He  was  a  "  stout  gentleman."  Sav. 
Wint.  ii.  56. 

X  Davis's  Morton,  p.  317..  note. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  257 

away  like  snow-wreaths,  and  for  themselves  no  safety  could 
be  found,  but  on  the  soil  of  Britain,  which  then,  in  the  fa- 
bles of  the  Puritans,  brought  forth  armed  oppressors,  as  if, 
after  fables  older  still,  it  had  been  sown  with  the  teeth  of 
dragons. — Did  Anabaptists  venture  to  interrupt  his  darling 
schemes  for  Puritanic  sovereignty  and  consolidation,  with 
the  portentous  hint,  that  the  bodies  of  his  fellow-men,  if 
not  their  souls,  needed  fuller  ablutions  than  they  had  yet 
experienced  ?  He  cowes  and  silences  them  with  legislative 
thunders,  no  faint  re-echoes  from  the  Vatican.  And  if  he 
had  not  the  wire-whips  and  whips  with  spur-rowels,  that  the 
Spanish  Armada  was  bringing  in  such  goodly  store  for  re- 
bellious England,*  he  had  ample  supply  of  three-corded 
scourges  for  them  ;t  or,  for  want  of  such  a  handy  article, 
could  doubtless  try  a  musket-barrel,  after  the  practice  upon 
Oldham's  back  at  Plymouth. — Did  form-abhorring  Quakers, 
{i.  e.  in  appearance  such  :  in  reality,  few  or  none  have  more 
forms — making  even  grammar  an  article  of  faith:)  did  they 
open  their  pestiferous  lips  about  the  civil  government,  or 
church  polity,  of  a  soil  exclusively  not  theirs  ?  a  government 
and  polity  which  long  were  "  solemn  sisters"  on  these  shores 
of  liberty — a  government  and  polity  it  was  his  soul's  delight 
to  rear,  mature,  enlarge,  and  fortify — for  such  "  pernicious 
vagabonds"  he  could  make  the  State,  like  a  laboring  volca- 
no, throw  out  torrents  of  lava  to  sweep  them  to  destruction. 
Such  he  could  put  in  cages,  bury  in  dungeons,  or  grind  with 
fines.  Such  he  could  strip  almost  to  nudity,  chain  to  a 
cart's  tail  like  dancing  bears,  and  mangle  with  a  scourge 
from   town   to  town,  if  there   were    fifty   in    succession.^ 

*  Phenix  Britannicus,  p.  451. 

t  See  Benedict's  Baptists,  i.  374,  379.  Bliss's  Rehoboth  and  See- 
konk,  pp.  206,  207. 

t  The  law  of  mercy,  it  will  be  recollected,  passed  after  King  Charles's 
remonstrance,  provided  that  the  Quakers  should  be  whipped  through  but 
three  towns ! !  ! 


258  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

Through  the  unruly  members  of  such  seditious  speechifiers, 
he  could  bore  with  a  red-hot  iron  ;^^  and  when  torture,  short 
of  death,  could  not  tire  their  radicalism  down,  he  could 
stretch  them  on  the  scaffold,  and  leave  their  "  cursed  " 
carcasses  for  the  beasts  of  the  field  and  the  birds  of  heaven.* 
This  he  could  do,  unblenchingly,  while  no  relentingsleft  an 
impress  on  his  well-cased  heart :  a  heart  which  President 
Stiles  pronounced  "  of  oak,"  but  which  an  exacter  judgment 
might  have  declared  to  be  lignum  vitce.i  Or,  to  abandon 
my  own  language,  which  some  will  think  too  like  the  sub- 
ject it  describes,  and  to  adopt,  as  an  interlude,  the  classics 
of  the  Magnalia  over  a  corresponding  hero  : 

The  Quaker,  trembling  at  his  thunder,  fled. 
And  with  Caligula  resumed  his  bed. 
He,  by  the  motions  of  a  nobler  spirit, 
Clear'd  men,  and  made  their  notions  swine  inherit. 
The  iVIunster  goblin,  by  his  holy  flood 
Exorcised,  like  a  thin  phantasma  stood. 
Brown's  Babel,  shatter'd  by  his  lightning,  fell. 
And  with  confused  horror  pack'd  to  hell.t 

What,  finally,  he  could  and  did  do,  to  Antinomians  and 
Familists,  Reevesites  and  Muggletonians,  Gortonists  and 
the  Aborigines,  and  shoals  of  unwritten  heresies — what  to 
all  who  durst  presume  to  trench,  anywise  closely,  on  the 
soil  or  rights  of  his  imperial  colony,  I  need  not  say.  Imagi- 
nation, with  the  aids  already  given,  can  easily  complete  the 
picture.  What  would  have  been  the  issue,  had  the  mother- 
country  been  so  embroiled  in  civil  war  as  to  be  unable  to 
inspect  her  distant  settlements — what  if  Cromwell  had 
longer  reigned — what  if  Endicott's  life  had  been  in  its  spring 

93  See  Note  98. 

*  This  will  be  proved  when  we  come  to  the  letter  relating  particu- 
larly to  the  Quakers. 

t  Even  Neal  says  he  was  "  too  severe."     New  England,  ii.  346. 
X  Magnalia,  ii.  95. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  259 

and  not  its  autumn — it  is  hardly  possible  to  fancy.  But 
most  certain  it  is,  that  during  the  last  years  of  his  undesira- 
ble existence,  the  lurid  clouds  of  a  reign  of  terror  seemed  to 
be  fast  spreading  over  these  western  skies,  and  preparing  to 
pour  a  storm  of*'  hail-stones  and  coals  of  fire."  True,  says 
Mr.  Bancroft,  with  most  inglorious  complacency,  but  four 
Quakers  were  absolutely  executed.*  Yes,  Heaven  be 
thanked  for  its  interventions,  there  were  actually  no  more. 
But  how  many,  of  whom  the  prisons  were  emptied  when  the 
royal  mandamus  arrested  blood-shedding,  would  have  fol- 
lowed their  fatal  steps,  and  been  wrapped  in  their  awful 
shroud,  had  the  old  state  of  things  continued — Heaven  only 
knows. °^  Charles  was  restored — Endicott  died ;  and  when 
the  sun  seemed  to  be  turning  into  darkness,  and  the  moon 
into  blood,  the  day  of  deliverance  dawned  in  the  East,  and 
the  day-star  of  hope  arose  in  many  a  fear-worn  heart. 

Let  the  persecutor  sleep  as  he  can  in  his  gloomy  grave. 
Better,  oh  far  better,  were  it,  to  languish  in  prison  man's 
whole  limit  of  life,  or  to  die  two  deaths  like  Laud's  under 
the  executioner's  axe,  than  to  grow  hoary  in  intolerance,  and 
spend  our  shortening  breath  in  a  cause,  which,  under  the 
impressive  testimony  of  Justice  Story,  had  the  substance  of 
the  Inquisition  if  not  its  forms,  "  with  a  full  share  of  its 
terrors  and  its  violence."  Si  recludantur  tyrannoruni 
mentes,  posse  adspici  laniatus  et  ictus ;  quando,  ut  corpora 
verberibus,  ita  saevitia,  libidine,  malis  consuliis,  animus 
dilaceretur.j: 

93  See  Note  99. 

*  Whitelock,  the  Lord  Keeper  of  Cromwell,  says  that  the  severest  of 
Queen  Elizabeth's  laws  about  conformity  was  never  executed  but  once  or 
twice.     Will  that  excuse  Churchmen  ? — Whitelock's  Essays,  p.  119. 

t  Story's  Misc.  p.  66.  X  Tacit.  Ann.  lib.  vi.  6. 


2C0  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 


LETTER  XIII. 

My  last  letter  was  chiefly  occupied  with  some  remarks 
upon  the  spirit  and  conduct  of  the  Puritanical  priesthood, 
and  the  characters  and  administrations  of  two  of  the  best- 
known  governors  of  the  foremost  of  Puritan  common- 
wealths— that  of  Massachusetts.  They  were  given,  and  may 
be  used,  I  conceive,  as  a  fair  oflfeet  against  the  hackneyed 
censures  of  Puritan  essayists,  orators,  and  lyric-mongers, 
upon  the  Episcopal  Church  and  government  of  our  mother 
country.  And,  now,  if  Puritans  will  only  praise  others  than 
themselves,  their  literary  productions  will  have  an  element 
hitherto  estranged  from  them,  and  a  new  era  begin.  But  if 
not,  and  if  Churchmen  still  hear  Ap.  Laud's  character  vili- 
fied, (as  I  believe  has  been  done  again  and  again  in  a  Ly- 
ceum lecture,  where  courtesy  should  enforce  restraint  on 
topics  of  controversy,)  I  have  helped  them  to  a  name,  which 
might  answer  for  a  foil  to  philippics,  as  stormy  as  the  ora- 
tions against  Cataline. 

Few  works  of  compilation  would  be  easier,  than  to  ex- 
pand these  letters,  by  rambling  at  large  over  the  diversified 
field  of  Massachusetts  ecclesiastical  history,  and  to  show  how 
ill,  in  the  minutest  matters,  Puritans  ever  bore  their  faculties 
towards  Churchmen.  Some,  however,  will  think  I  have 
said  too  much  already.  Of  them  I  beg  a  little  patience  ; 
for  I  am  not  yet  prepared  to  leave  untold  several  things  con- 
cerning the  treatment  which  Episcopalians  received  at  the 
hands  of  brethren,  who  pronounced  their  Church  a  "  dear 
mother,"  and  solemnly  declared  the  milk  wherewith  they 
were  nourished  was  sucked  from  her  breast : — milk,  unhap- 


L 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.         261 

pily,  which,  when  it  had  passed  their  lips,  seemed,  like  the 
apocalyptic  book,  to  be  converted  into  gall. 

There  are  three  topics,  in  relation  to  which  the  hostility 
of  Puritans  to  Churchmen  was  ever  apparent,  and  yielded 
not  till  the  last  moment,  if,  (so  far  it  can  be  exerted,)  it  has 
yielded  still.  These  are,  their  opposition  to  Episcopal  mis- 
sionaries, and  their  prevention  of  an  American  Episcopate  : 
this  second  subject  embracing  in  it  two  subsidiary  ones — 
the  loss  of  Confirmation  to  the  whole  body  of  Episcopalians, 
and  almost  the  loss  of  means  of  obtaining  Holy  Orders  for 
their  clergy. 

These  topics  unavoidably  run  together  ;  and  so  I  shall 
not  attempt  a  formal  separation  of  them. 

No  matter  what  the  opinions  of  Episcopalians  might  be, 
whether  true  or  untrue  :  it  was  clearly  and  accurately  com- 
prehended, that  one  of  their  most  solemn  rites  might  be 
denied  them  ally  and  the  increase  of  their  clergy  be  most 
effectually  retarded,  by  defeating  every  effort  for  the  esta- 
blishment of  an  American  bishop's  see. 

Now,  were  these  attempts  to  defeat  and  mortify  such 
efforts  consistent  (I  say  not  with  Christian  charity)  with 
honor  and  manliness?  To  find  a  feebler  adversary  at  dis- 
advantage, and  to  improve  that  disadvantage,  were  any  thing 
but  excusable,  save  in  a  necessary  war.  Little  could  it 
redound  to  the  credit,  though  it  might  promote  the  temporal 
interests  of  an  avowed  Christian  denomination,  to  seize  such 
an  opportunity  eagerly,  and  improve  it  systematically. 
Least  of  all,  however,  could  such  conduct  be  tolerable  in 
those,  who  fled  a  distance  broad  as  the  Atlantic,  to  escape 
such  usurpation ;  and  who,  because  Christians  in  England 
were,  at  the  best,  but  negatively  good,  came  "  to  practise  the 
positive  part  of  Church  reformation  in  America."  And  a 
grievous  blot  must  it  be  on  their  escutcheon,  who  have  not 
only  improved  such  opportunities,  but  defended  and  glori- 
fied them  ;  while  it  has  been,  and  still  is,  their  fulsome  pro- 

12* 


262  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

fession,  that  "  impositions  on  conscience"  are  "  the  great- 
est evil  on  this  side  hell."* 

But  it  was,  unhappily,  a  literal  fact  that  their  system  was, 
to  American  Episcopalians  during  our  colonial  history,  a 
very  serious  disability.  A  Puritan  believed  that  his  paper 
ballot  could  manufacture  a  priest,  as  easily  as  the  money  and 
the  lay  consecration  of  Micah  promoted  a  Levite,  thousands 
of  years  ago.  (Judges  xvii.  7-13.)  Now  it  is  not  improb- 
able, that  even  then  the  theory,  now  developed  and  fashion- 
able,t  that  every  Christian  is  a  priest,  and  can  do  his  own 
preaching  and  praying,  baptize  his  own  children,  and  ad- 
minister the  Lord's  Supper  whenever  he  pleases,  existed  in 
embryo^  and  was  affording  the  lovers  of  liberty  some  of  its 
disenthralling  alleviations.  But  a  poor  sorry  Churchman 
could  not  enjoy  such  delectable  freedom.  His  system  taught 
him,  and  his  conscience  bound  him  to  believe,  the  costly 
tenet,  that  the  people  can  neither  make  nor  unmake  a  cler- 
gyman. And  the  same  system  enforced  on  him,  the  apos- 
tolical fitness  of  recording  his  acknowledgment  of  his  baptis- 
mal vows  before  the  earthly  head  of  his  Church,  and  of 
receiving  from  him  the  encouragement  of  a  blessing  in  his 
Master's  Name,  and  a  welcome  to  all  the  privileges  of  his 
Master's  holy  and  beautiful  house.  Yet  this  same  system 
was,  to  an  American  Churchman,  a  most  inconvenient  and 
often  harassing  thing.  He  must  send  three  thousand  miles 
for  his  priest,  and  had  little  of  Micah's  silver  to  tempt  him 
with.  The  benediction  of  his  spiritual  father  he  must,  in 
all  probability,  forever  forego. 

Now  did  not  the  Puritans  know  this?  Not  a  man 
was  there  among  them   but  knew  it  full   well ;    and   not  a 

*  Bogue  and  Bennet's  Dissenters,  ii.  427. 

t  See  a  tract  of  William  Ballantine  ;  the  translated  works  of  Nean- 
der ;  Straiten  on  the  Priesthood  ;  and  the  Socinian  Dedication  Sermon 
of  Henry  Colman,  Dec.  1824,  at  Salem,  Mass. — Compare  Featley's  An- 
abaptists, 6th  edit.  p.  123. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  263 

man  too  who  ought  not  to  have  respected  American  Epis- 
copalians, for  their  conscientious  and  steady  adherence  to 
the  system  of  their  convictions ;  since  their  own  alleged  ad- 
herence to  their  own  system  across  the  ocean,  was  praised, 
even  to  weariness,  as  a  "  thrice'illustrious"  virtue.  But, 
sad  inequality  !  this  might  not  be.  Puritans  were  ever  good 
at  demanding,  yet  always  slow  and  chilly  as  the  approaches 
of  a  New  England  summer,  in  granting  consideration. 
The  concentrated,  the  indurated  might  of  their  enmity,  was 
therefore  marshalled  against  the  entrance  of  a  bishop  upon 
the  "  holy  ground  "  of  that  territory,  the  "  exclusive  proper- 
ty "  of  which  they  had  appropriated  to  their  individual 
selves.  And  they  not  only  acted  thus  here,  but  they  carried 
their  opposition  back  to  the  very  soil  they  had  abandoned 
as  unfit  for  human  beings ;  and  endeavored  to  breed  dis- 
cords in  the  heart  of  their  father-land,  and  of  that  Church 
out  of  whose  "  bowels  "  they  professed,  quite  solemnly,  to 
have  sprung.  That  venerable  Society  for  propagating  the 
Gospel  in  foreign  parts, ^°^  (which  can  count  lustrums  in  its 
existence  for  units  in  the  existence  of  others  oftener  ap- 
plauded,) was  absolutely  reviled,*  because  it  presumed  to 
allow  a  herald  of  peace  in  Jesus  Christ,  to  preach  and  ad- 
minister ordinances  within  a  territory,  whose  fee  was  vested 
indefeasibly  in  their  "  sacramental  host  "  alone.  Less  in- 
deed was  said  against  this  ancient  association,  when  its 
strength  was  infantile  and  its  servants  few.  But  as  it  tow- 
ered to  manhood,  and  began  to  plant  its  footsteps  in  com- 
manding situations,  there  was  a  stir  seen  in  the  ranks  of  its 
opponents.  The  whisper  began  to  circulate,  that  the  enemy 
was  coming  in  like  a  flood,  and  '^  fatal  accidents,"  as  Noah 
Hobart  called   conversions  to  Episcopacy,  might  multiply. 

^^  See  Note  100. 

*  Reviled,  and  by  Whitefield's  example  ;  he  all  the  while  pretending 
to  be  an  Episcopalian  I — Gordon's  America,  i.  147. 


264  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

By  and  by,  the  execration  began  to  be  muttered,  after  the 
language  of  the  angel,  Curse  ye  Meroz,  curse  ye  bitterly 
the  inhabitants  thereof,  if  they  come  not  to  the  help  of  the 
Lord,  to  the  help  of  the  Lord  against  the  mighty,  (Judges 
V.  23.) 

A  church  was  erected,*  less  than  a  Sabbath-day's  jour- 
ney from  the  very  walls  of  that  College,  which  was  to  be 
for  Puritans  what  Maynooth  and  St.  Omers  have  been  for 
Jesuits,  and  to  send  forth  well-disciplined  antagonists  of  an 
*'  Anti-christian  hierarchy,"  and  practised  decriers  of  the 
"  ill-mumbled  mass  "  of  a  Common  Prayer  Book.t  This, 
says  Archdeacon  Burnaby,  who  travelled  in  this  country 
about  the  time  of  its  erection,  (1760,)  was  considered  '*  the 
most  fatal  stroke  that  could  possibly  have  been  levelled  at 
their  religion. "|  And  it  was  esteemed,  no  doubt,  a  more 
"  fatal  accident,"  because  the  church  in  question  was  sus- 
tained by  a  rector,  whom  he  characterizes  as  a  man  of 
**  shining  parts,  great  learning,  and  pure  and  engaging  man- 
ners." Burnaby  was  right.  When  Dr.  Mayhew  opened  the 
flood-gates  of  his  invective  against  the  Propagation  Society, 
under  whose  auspices  Dr.  Apthorp  commenced  his  labors  at 
Cambridge,  he  found  in  him  an  adversary  who  could  cope 
with  an  assailant  in  the  sharpest  onset.§     Dr.  Apthorp  was 

*  Christ  Church,  Cambridge  ;  a  beautiful  structure,  endeared  to  me 
by  many  recollections,  still  standing  on  its  original  site. 

t  Mr.  L.  Bacon  has,  I  am  told,  a  new  name  for  it,  viz.  Christianity  pet- 
rified. 1  am  not  surprised  at  Jiis  dislike  of  it  ;  for  it  talks  of  the  satisfac- 
tion of  the  atonement,  of  original  sin,  &c.,  lilie  the  old  creeds.  It  is 
ancient  and  unchanged  ;  may  it  more  and  more  resemble  its  basis,  the 
Rock  of  Ages.  Congregationalism  is  chan^ful  enough  to  suit  the  most 
whimsical.  It  is  the  sandbank  of  religion — now  here,  and  now  there  ; 
like  the  shores  of  our  great  western  rivers — shifting  with  the  stream. 

X  Travels,  4to,  3d  ed.  p.  180. 

^  Dr.  Caner  figured  in  the  controversy,  also.  Dr.  Apthorp  closed  it ; 
Dr.  Mayhew  never  replied  to  him.  See  also  Note  101.  Chandler's 
Life  of  Dr.  Johnson,  pp.  112,  113. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  265 

no  ordinary  man :  as  a  scholar  he  had  probably,  in  his  day 
in  America,  but  few  competitors.  His  letters  upon  history, 
intended  to  display  Gibbon's  partiality  and  errors,*  and  his 
Warburtonian  Lectures,  evince  an  ability  and  erudition, 
which  need  but  to  be  known  to  be  appreciated  and  admired. 
But  though  he  shrunk  not  from  the  post  of  danger,  while 
the  storm  was  at  its  height — though  he  buffeted  the  torrent 
when  it  roared,  with  lusty  sinews  throwing  it  aside,  and 
stemming  it  with  a  heart  of  controversy ;  yet,  like  many  a 
good  man,  who  feared  not  a  tempest's  fury,  he  was  ex- 
hausted and  disheartened  by  that  wearying  and  fretting 
petulance,  which  has  been  compared  to  the  incessant  drop- 
pings of  a  rainy  day.  Fatigued  and  disgusted,  he  at  length 
sought  refuge  in  a  clime,  more  congenial  to  the  faith  of  his 
choice  and  love;  which  had  ''mists"  perhaps,  but  none 
quite  so  choking  as  those,  amid  which  Mr.  Bancroft's  _un- 
throttled  fancy  delights  to  rove. 

The  contest  sustained  by  him,  and  Dr.  Caner,  with  Dr. 
Mayhew,  seconded  by  an  able  tract,  (published  anonymous- 
ly,) from  the  pen  of  Dr.  Seeker  then  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury ,t  fills  an  octavo  of  nearly  six  hundred  pages  ;  (leaving 
out  too  some  of  the  tracts  I  never  saw;)  and  shows,  most 
evidently,  the  unwasted  transmission  of  that  enmity  to  Epis- 
copacy, which  Puritans  were  once  careful  to  disclaim,  but 
never  reluctant  to  practise  and  diffuse.  The  very  men  who 
once  called  God  to  witness,  that  while  they  had  breath  they 
would  sincerely,  (O,  why  did  they  put  that  word  into  the  Let- 
ter from  the  Arbella  ?  did  they  think  themselves  open  to 
suspicions  of  dishonesty  ?)  "sincerely  desire  and  endeavor 
the  continuance  and  abundance  of  the  welfare  of  the  Church 
of  England,  and  the  enlargement  of  her  bounds,"  sent  down 
to  future  times  such  a  detestation  of  the  Church  of  England, 

*  For  which  Gibbon  sarcastically  says,  that  he  collated  him  to  a  good 
fat  benifice. — Gibbon's  Life,  chap.  ix. 
t  Seeker's  Works,  vi.  417. 


266  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

that  when  she  would  have  planted  a  solitary  foot-print  on 
the  soil  of  New  England,  pens  must  be  dipped  in  gall  to 
frighten  her  away,  since  the  musket  balls  of  former  days 
could  not  be  employed  as  easily* — since,  as  Justice  Story 
says,  "  persecution  "  must  become  "  less  frequent,  because 
it  was  less  safe."t  What  does  all  this  prove,  but  that  a  vow 
like  Hannibal's  may  be  taken  in  reality,  if  not  in  form,  in 
days  of  Christian  light ;  and  that  a  conspiracy  like  that  of 
the  forty  Jews  against  St.  Paul,  may  be  virtually  entered 
into  by  "pilgrims"  for  peace  and  liberty,  and  the  most  per- 
tinacious and  canting  devotees  of  the  rights  of  private  judg- 
ment. I  say  canting  ;  for  though  "  the  cant  of  criticism  " 
may  to  some  be  the  "  most  tormenting,"  the  cant  of  illiberal 
liberalism  deserves  equal  if  not  higher  commemoration. 
The  thing  exists  now,  too,  as  well  as  in  the  days  of  Puritan- 
ism's culmination.  There  are  not  a  few  in  New  England, 
still,  who,  as  one  happily  expressed  it,  are  "  bigotted  to 
their  liberality."  I  have  never  known,  in  all  my  readings 
of  Church  history,  or  in  my  own  experience,  (and  I  am 
somewhat  qualified  to  judge,  having  for  years  served  the 
Episcopal  Churches  in  Salem  and  Cambridge,  Massachu- 
setts,) such  thorough  and  wholesale  uncharitableness,  as 
among  deniers  of  the  Trinity,  or  sneerers  at  the  Atonement, 
or  among  the  eulogists  of  exiles  voyaging  for  unbounded 
freedom  of  thought. 

It  has  been  intimated,  that  there  was  in  essence  if  not  in 
form,  a  deep  and  formidable  conspiracy  of  Puritans  against 
Anglo-American  Churchmen.  It  is  not  an  easy  thing  to 
resist  the  conclusion  to  which  this  intimation  points.  For 
we  find  these  voyagers  for  charity  and  liberality,  though  it 
was  notorious  that  Confirmation  was  impossible,  and  that 
Ordination  was  expensive,  and  attempts  to  obtain  it  fruitless 
or  fatal, ^°'  still  resisting  an  American  Episcopate,  as  ear- 
'^2  See  Note  102. 

*  Felt's  Salem,  p.  74.  t  Misc.  p.  66. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  267 

nestly  and  fixedly,  as  stamp-acts,  port-bills,  or  the  dissolution 
of  a  charter.  The  time  when  musket-balls  were  made 
ready  for  it  in  1635,  has  been  alluded  to  already.  Boucher, 
in  his  tract  on  an  American  Episcopate,*  speaks  of  a  failure 
in  some  almost  successful  efforts  to  establish  it,  in  the  reign 
of  Charles  the  Second.  "  The  decease  of  Anne,"  says  Mr. 
Greenwood,  "  put  a  stop,  for  the  time,  to  the  proceedings 
relating  to  American  bishoprics ;  and  though  the  plan  was 
presented  and  urged  in  succeeding  reigns,  it  was  never  ac- 
complished, and  perhaps  never  came  so  near  accomplish- 
ment, as  at  this  first  trial. "t  He  says  "  first  trial,"  but 
the  allusions  already  made,  show  how  Mr.  G.  can  sometimes 
be  mistaken  in  facts,  as  well  as  in  deductions. 

What  was  done  in  relation  to  this  subject  in  1725,  when 
a  Congregational  Synod  was  headed  by  Cotton  Mather,  who 
had  no  objection  to  being  bishop  himself;  for  he  was,  on 
Puritan  authority,  a  "  sovereign  in  his  dogmas  and  absolute 
in  power"! — what  was  done,  I  say,  at  this  synod,  the  pur- 
poses of  which  were  cloaked  in  terms  Jesuitically  dark,  has 
been  related  by  me  in  the  182d  Number  of  the  Church- 
man.^"^ §  The  valuable  correspondence  of  the  firm  and 
learned  Dr.  Cutler,  then  rector  of  Christ  Church,  Boston, 
and  previously  rector,  (as  the  style  then  was,)  of  Yale  Col- 
lege II — of  the  intrepid  and  witty  John  Checkley,^]  who  had 

""-'  See  Note  103. 

*  Sermons,  &c.  p.  92.  t  King's  Chapel,  p.  82. 

t  Hutch.  Hist.  ii.  292.  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  series,  ix.  13,  note. — 
"  Their  great  ecclesiastical  head,"  i.  e.  Congregational  pope.  Quincy's 
Add.  p.  33. 

§  Compare  Bancroft's  United  States,  iii.  391,  400. 

II  See  Chandler's  Life  of  Johnson,  p.  31,  et  seq.  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d 
series,  ii.  128,  and  iv.  297. 

V  Eliot's  Biog.  Diet.  p.  104,  for  an  amusing  notice.  Dr.  Eliot  says 
Checkley  believed  in  nobody's  goodness,  unless  he  were  a  high- church- 
man. He  might  have  believed,  innocently  enough,  in  the  goodness  of 
nobody  but  a  Puritan. 


268  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

just  about  run  through  his  six  months  of  good  behavior,  to 
which  a  Puritan  Court  had  doomed  him  for  publishing 
Leslie  on  Episcopacy — and  of  several  others,  collected  in 
the  fourth  volume  of  Nichols'  Literary  Illustrations — throw  a 
flood  of  light  on  that  page  of  our  ecclesiastical  annals.  The 
same  temper  which  that  juncture  saw,  lived  on  in  the  chil- 
dren of  those  who  manifested  it,  and  lived  through  genera- 
tions like  a  leprosy. 

But  it  would  carry  me  too  far  to  enter  into  minutiae, 
respecting  an  era  in  which  the  defence  of  the  Church  was 
maintained,  and  her  rights  urged,  by  such  men  as  Johnson, 
Caner,  Beach,  Leaming,  Wetmore,  Chandler,  and  others. 
Few,  at  this  day,  have  either  known  or  seen  the  fruits  of 
their  laborious  pens,  or  are  aware  how  they  realized,  in 
their  own  lives,  the  prophetic  anticipation  of  the  Prayer 
Book  at  a  baptism,  about  "  the  waves  of  this  troublesome 
world."  Suffice  it  to  mention  of  the  first,  whose  name  can 
never  die  while  Episcopacy  survives  here,  that  when  he 
commenced  his  mission  at  Stratford,  Connecticut,  it  was  a 
long  time  before  the  Puritans  would  sell  him  the  bare  ne- 
cessaries of  life,  and  he  was  compelled  to  obtain  them,  at 
great  expense  and  from  a  distance,  by  water  conveyances, 
then  very  precarious.  They  did  not  succeed,  however,  in 
dislodging  him,  by  the  slow  terrors  of  starvation.  His  meek- 
ness conquered  ;  and  at  last  they  no  longer  refused  him 
bread.  I  have  this  from  an  authority  not  to  be  disputed  : 
one  of  his  direct  descendants.  And  it  is  easy  of  belief  on 
other  grounds  ;  for  starvation  seems  to  have  been  a  favorite 
expedient  to  drive  away  Episcopal  missionaries.* 

Between  the  year  1760,  and  the  Revolution  in  1776, 
the  fiercest  assault  was  made  upon  Episcopacy  ;t  and  then, 
too,  some  of  its  ablest  advocates  made  their  appearance. 

*  See  Chandler's  Johnson,  p.  61. 

t  See  "  Minutes  of  the  Convention  of  Delegates  from  the  Synod  of 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  269 

Dr.  Mayhew  found  all  his  powers  of  sarcasm  and  thunder 
unable  to  silence  such  men  as  Caner  and  Apthorp ;  nor 
could  Dr.  Chauncey  more  effectually  extinguish  Dr.  Chand- 
ler.* Chandler,  (meanly  as  Allen  caricatures  him,  Diet, 
p.  248,  as  a  proselyte  for  preferment,)  fought  the  battles  of 
the  Church  most  manfully.  Twice  did  he  come  to  the 
rescue,  to  sustain  his  *  Appeal  to  the  public  in  behalf  of  the 
Church  of  England,'  and  to  the  very  eve  of  a  crisis,  which 
involved  his  country  in  the  horrors  of  civil  war.'°* 

But,  as  I*before  said,  the  details  of  this  era  are  too  nu- 
merous for  the  sketches  I  have  undertaken.  The  subject, 
however,  which  occasioned  them,  I  can  hardly  pass  by  ; 
and  more  particularly,  because  the  groundwork  of  the  con- 
troversial writings  now  referred  to  has  been  considered,  as 
one  of  the  mainsprings  of  our  Revolution  and  severance 
from  the  mother  country.  This  doctrine  is  most  distinctly 
avowed  by  the  second  President  of  these  States,  in  a  letter 
written  by  him,  under  date  of  Dec.  2,  1815,  and  which  is 
quoted  in  the  New  York  Evangelist  of  Nov.  9,  1843. 

This  doctrine  is  maintained,  doubtless,  less  to  justify 
that  Revolution,  than  to  give  Episcopalians  an  invidious 
distinction  in  history  ;  and  is  raked  up  at  this  late  day, 
when  much  of  the  old  antipathy  to  Episcopacy  seems  to  be 
reviving,  because  of  the  system's  great  success.  But  be 
that  as  it  may,  it  is  a  doctrine  in  unfortunate  collision  with 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  which  complains  not  o^ fears 
of  wrongs,  but  of  wrongs  inflicted.  The  British  Government 
never  established  a  bishop  here,  during  our  Colonial  ex- 
istence ;  and  to  make  an  apprehension  of  a  fact,  rather  than 

^04  See  Note  104. 

New- York  and  Philadelphia,  and  from  the  Associations  of  Connecticut ; 
held  annually  from  1766  to  1775,  inclusive." — Hartford,  Ct.  1843. 

*  Even  Dr.  Allen  calls  Dr.   Chauncey  "  vehement  and  extravagant." 
Biog.  Diet.  252,  col.  a. 


270  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

a  fact  itself,  a  ground  for  Revolution,  is  contradicting  the 
very  instrument  that  proclaims  our  Independence,  which  is 
based  (as  so  solemn  an  instrument  should  ever  be)  upon 
realities  and  not  on  fancies.  It  is  unworthy  Americans,  it 
is  unworthy  their  cause,  to  say  that  a  fear  of  possible  future 
injuries  provoked  present  revolution. 

Moreover,  they  who  descanted  most  largely  upon  the 
oppressions  and  persecutions  which  an  Anglo-American 
bishop  would  be  likely  to  inflict,  did  not,  after  all,  in  their 
hearts,  much  dread  them.  The  Jacobites,  as  ©r.  Chandler 
says,  had  sent  bishops  to  this  country  as  early  as  about 
1723;*  and  if  the  Puritans  could  have  induced  those  bish- 
ops to  have  established  sees,  rival  to  those  of  Canterbury 
and  London,  they  would  have  rallied  round  them  with 
acclamations.  No;  they  did  not  dread  Episcopacy;  but  it 
was  a  good  bugbear  with  which  to  frighten  the  timid,  and 
advance  political  scheming,  and  so,  doubtless,  it  was  made 
use  of  to  the  utmost.  ^°^  It  may,  thus  used,  have  scared 
some,  exasperated  others,  and  even  induced  the  commission 
of  deeds  of  violence. 

So  Dr.  Mayhew's  sermon  on  the  text  "  I  would  they  were 
cut  off"  that  trouble  you,"  brought  down,  at  least  helped  to 
bring  down,  a  storm  of  outrage  and  the  assaults  of  a  mob 
upon  Gov.  Hutchinson ;  and  the  Dr.  was  sorry  for  it  when 
it  was  all  too  late. t  The  Governor  was  an  opportune  subject 
for  the  Dr.  with  which  to  inflame  the  public  mind ;  and  so 
probably  was  Episcopacy,  or  any  other  subject,  by  means  of 
which  the  community  could  be  roused  to  indignation  against 
England.  The  Dr.  repented  of  the  mischief  he  indirectly 
did  the  Governor,  and  said  his  whole  estate  should  go,  if  it 
could  recall  his  sermon.     If  all  his  anti-trinitarianism  could 

»°^  See  Note  105. 

*  Life  of  Johnson,  p.  38.     Har.  Adams's  New  England,  p.  212. 
t  Hutch.  Hist.  iii.  123,  the  English  edit. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  271 

have  gone  for  the  mischief  he  has  indirectly  done  Episco- 
pacy, he  might  have  blessed  God  for  the  riddance.  But 
he  was  man  whose  temperament,  if  warm,  was  not  vindic- 
tive ;  and  we  can  easily  believe  his  head  outwent  his  heart, 
in  respect  to  the  Church,  as  well  as  Governor  Hutchinson, 
and  let  his  memory  rest  in  peace. 

President  Adams  had  an  unquestionable  Puritan  aversion 
to  Episcopacy.  His  sneer  at  Dr.  Apthorp,  in  the  Letter 
alluded  to,  fully  evinces  it.  He  speaks  of  him  as  "  hot  from 
Oxford,  and  still  more  warmed  by  holy  orders  from  Episco- 
pal hands  ;"  and  thus,  also,  when  the  frost  of  fourscore  win- 
ters ought  to  have  made  him  write  far,  far  more  coolly.  No 
wonder,  then,  that  he  should  have  magnified  Episcopacy 
into  one  of  those  causes  which,  as  much  as  any  thing  else, 
(so  his  letter  has  it,)  conduced  to  the  horrors  of  revolution. 
And  there  is  the  less  wonder  at  it ;  for  he  seemed  to  think 
one  thing  a  cause  of  the  Revolution  at  one  time,  and  an- 
other at  another.  **  Writs  of  assistance"  were  the  chief 
evil  in  his  view,  at  the  very  time  that  Drs.  Mayhew  and  Ap- 
thorp were  carrying  on  their  controversy,  between  1760  and 
1765.*  But  in  1815,  he  rather  remembers  Episcopacy  as 
the  head  and  front  of  American  wrongs.  The  former  was 
his  theme  at  the  age  of  thirty,  and  the  latter  at  fourscore ! 

One  thing  more,  and  this  point  shall  not  be  argued  fur- 
ther ;  for  really  it  is  unworthy  our  adversaries — our  country- 
men too — to  cast  our  faith  into  our  teeth  as  a  cause  of  rev- 
olution and  disaster,  when  the  blood  of  Episcopalians  flowed 
as  freely  for  their  country's  rights  as  that  of  Puritans,  and 
when  under  God,  as  all  confess,  our  liberties  are  more  in- 
debted to  an  Episcopalian  than  to  any  body.  Why  will 
they  so  constantly  and  so  studiously  forget  two  facts,  that 
should  be  an  everlasting  excuse   with  Americans,  that  the 


*  Allen's   Biog.   Diet.  p.    9.     Holmes's  Annals,  ii.    107.     Gordon's 
Amer.  Rev.  i.  141. 


272  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

first  General  of  our  armies,  and  the  first  chaplain  of  our 
Congress,  (George  Washington  and  William  White,)  were 
Churchmen,  both  of  them? 

But  what  I  was  about  to  say  is  this.  Men  judge 
differently  of  the  causes  of  the  Revolution,  according  to 
facts  more  immediately  under  their  own  review.  President 
Adams  once  thought  writs  of  assistance  brought  it  on.  Judge 
Trowbridge  thought  the  putting  Governor  Hutchinson  into  a 
place  wanted  by  James  Otis,  a  procuring  cause  ;  and  no 
doubt,  as  it  affected  personal  interests,  this  was  a  cause  of 
fatal  power.*  But  Dr.  Franklin  irw  his  "  Cool  Thoughts," 
written  before  the  Revolution,  (and  there  was  no  cooler 
thinker  among  all  our  politicians,)  did  not  hesitate  to  say, 
*'  But  this  event  [the  introduction  of  a  bishop]  will  happen 
neither  sooner  nor  later,  for  our  being,  or  not  being,  under 
a  royal  government. "t  And  with  this  sagacious,  almost 
prophetic  man's  judgment,  I  am  willing  to  leave  the  matter. 
Episcopacy,  in  itself  considered,  had  nothing  to  do  with 
provoking  our  Revolution.  That  politicians  introduced  it 
as  a  by-play  for  their  purposes,  when  they  were  waspish, 
and  caricatured  it  as  Lyceum,  Lecturers  and  New  England 
Reviewers  now  do,  to  awake  scorn  and  sustain  irascibility, 
can  be  safely  admitted.'"^  But  if  this  makes  Episcopacy 
criminal,  then  Christianity  itself  is  not  exempt  from  censure. 
Indirectly,  that  has  created  many  a  contest ;  for  its  very 
Author,  surveying  its  future  history,  said  he  came  not  to 
send  peace  on  earth,  but  a  sword. 

This  may  suffice,  I  hope,  to  vindicate  Episcopacy  from 

^06  See  Note  106. 

*  Eliot's  Biog.  Diet.  pp.  274,  354,  355. — I  might  say  the  slitting  and 
rolling  mill  act  was  rather  the  cause.  Bancroft  confesses  it  was  "  the  mer- 
cantile system  and  its  consequences." — See  Gordon's  Amer,  Rev.  i.  118. 
Bancroft's  United  States,  iii.  384,  390. 

t  Works,  Sparks'  ed.  iv.  89. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  273 

the  miserable  aspersion  now  cast  upon  it,  of  being  a  dis- 
turber of  American  peace,  and  of  compelling  Americans  to 
resist  its  tyrannical  encroachments  at  the  point  of  the  bay- 
onet. Let  us  now  go  back  to  the  location  in  history,  where 
we  supposed  ourselves,  before  the  episode  just  finished 
became  necessary.  In  imagination,  (though  it  requires  no 
great  effort  with  the  Minutes  of  the  Conventions  of  Presby- 
terian and  Congregational  delegates  befor^  one's  eyes,)  we 
see  Puritanical  exertions  without  number  or  cessation,  all 
levelled  against  Episcopacy,  and  especially  against  the  com- 
pletion of  its  system  in  America,  by  the  introduction  of  a 
bishop.  Let  us  then  suppose  the  tables  turned :  the  last 
made  foremost,  and  the  foremost  last.  Let  us  fancy  it  had 
been  in  the  power  of  Churchmen  to  have  denied  Congrega- 
tionalists  some  material  rite,  which  their  faith  demanded. 
Fancy  a  succession  from  the  "  Gifted  Brethren "  to  have 
been  indispensable,  and  that  these  brethren,  like  bishops, 
might  not  hoist  a  sail  to  convey  them  from  British  shores. 
And  then  fancy,  as  a  consequence,  that  unless  Churchmen 
chose  to  be  accommodating,  and  to  alter  the  state  of 
things,  an  inheritor  of  the  full  powers  of  these  "  Gifted 
Brethren  "  could  not  be  had,  short  of  the  hazard  and  ex- 
pense of  a  journey  of  six  thousand  miles.  Or  further,  sup- 
pose as  a  fair  equivalent  for  the  revenue,  which  Puritans,  in 
the  day  of  their  power,  extorted  from  Churchmen  for  the 
support  of  their  clergy,  these  Churchmen,  in  the  day  of 
thci}^  power,  had  enacted  a  statute  that  the  mighty  ballot, 
which  can  convert  a  layman  into  one  of  *'  God's  anointed 
ministers,"  should  be  destitute  of  this  divine  virtue,  unless 
duly  engrossed  on  stamped  paper. 

Oh,  how  the  same  essential  circumstances  would  totally 
have  altered  the  same  cases !  How  would  the  welkin 
have  echoed  outcries  against  domineering  pride,  malignant 
tyranny,  diabolical  oppressions — against  "  a  corrupt,  anti- 
christian  hierarchy,"  ''  a  false  and  superstitious  religion," 


274  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

priestly  impositions,"  and  "  impositions  on  conscience,"  than 
which  nothing,  say  Messrs.  Bogue  and  Bennet,  are  more  intol- 
erable save  one  thing — the  very  bottomless  pit !  As  Mr. 
Shepard,  (formerly  a  minister  of  Cambridge,  Mass.,  and  of 
much  celebrity  for  the  fame  of  his  sect  and  day,)  ascribed 
to  Laud's  ''  extreme  malice  and  secret  venom,"*  a  prohibi- 
tion from  preaching  within  his  diocese  ;  so  would  thousands 
have  ascribed  stich  lets  and  hindrances,  to  motives  as  infer- 
nal as  these.  And  if,  in  spite  of  them,  they  had  still  main- 
tained their  stand,  and  perpetuated,  and  increased  their 
sect,  when,  where,  would  terms  have  been  found,  eloquent 
enough  to  express  their  fortitude,  and  to  magnify,  to  conse- 
crate, to  canonize  their  devotion  ?  An  apotheosis  would 
hardly  have  exalted  it  too  much. 

But  where  are  the  volumes  which  record  the  clamorous 
remonstrances  of  Churchmen,  beneath  such  ponderous  op- 
pressions as  these  had  been  ?  Where  are  the  tales,  or  the 
poems,  which  as  Bancroft  says  have  been  evoked  by  Puritan 
story  ;t   and,  as  he  and  their  gauntleted  champions  would 

*  Here  we  see  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  Puritanism  developed.  It 
can  coolly  indulge  in  the  most  ferocious  ascriptions  of  evil  motives.  Such 
texts  as  Matt.  vii.  1,  and  1  Cor.  xiii.  7,  are  nothing  before  its  self-as- 
sumed infallibility. — The  unfortunate  archbishop  could  not  escape  censure 
any  way.  Shepard  reviled  him  for  his  severity,  and  Wells,  another  New 
England  minister,  for  his  moderation.  He  spoke  kindly  to  Wells,  when 
he  was  Bishop  of  London,  and,  as  his  diocesan,  suspended  him.  For  this 
kindness.  Wells  told  him  he  had  acted  against  his  conscience.  (See 
Laud's  Troubles,  pp.  213,  214.)  Was  this  W^ells,  as  Laud  calls  him 
the  Wells  who,  as  Chalmers  says,  was  appointed  an  agent  by  Massachu- 
setts, to  go  to  England  with  Hibbins  and  Hugh  Peters  in  1641  ?  (An- 
nals, p.  172.)  If  so,  he  might  have  been  selected  from  his  known  ermiity 
to  the  archbishop  :  not  to  say  that  he  thought  himself  in  the  way  of  his 
commission,  to  visit  and  worry  him,  as  it  seems  he  did,  during  his  im- 
prisonment. 

t  U.  States,  first  edit.  i.  338. — Mr.  Bancroft  is  ungallant  as  well  as 
uncandid.  His  Jirst  edition  here  singles  out  Mrs.  Hemans,  for  her  poetry 
in  praise  of  the  Puritans.  In  his  seventh  it  is  all — all  gone  !  See  vol.  i.  313, 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  375 

no  doubt  be  ready  to  maintain,  up  to  the  hilt  in  controversy, 
have  hallowed  Puritan  memories  with  "  all  the  dread  sub- 
limities of  song"  ?  Ah,  almost  like  the  solitary  fugitives 
from  the  wrecks  and  ruins  of  the  Patriarch's  princely  heri- 
tage, might  the  present  writer  say  of  the  wrongs  of  Episco- 
palians, he  only  is  left  to  tell  of  them.  Not  an  elegy,  per- 
haps, can  a  Churchman  find  over  his  brethren,  who  have 
been  buried  under  a  hostility  as  unsparing  as  that  of  Chey- 
nell  at  Chillingworth's  grave. '"^  "  Unwept,  unhonored,  and 
unsung,"  they  plodded  their  weary  way,  over  a  rough  and 
thorny  path  ;  or,  with  the  Psalmist,  heard  deep  calling  unto 
deep  at  the  noise  of  the  water-spouts.  Poor  Boucher  has 
indeed  left  a  precious  volume,  the  effusions  of  fervent  and 
fearless  Churchmanship,  showing  hoW,  like  the  workmen  of 
Nehemiah,  his  brethren  had  to  build  with  one  hand  and 
hold  a  weapon  with  the  other.*  But  Boucher  is  fast  de- 
scending into  "  dusty  death"  :  his  pages  will  soon  say  to 
corruption,  *  Thou  art  my  mother,'  and  the  pall  of  oblivion 
cover  them.  His  sermon,  or  tract,  on  an  American  Episco- 
pate, few  American  Episcopalians  may  ever  see.  We  have 
no  Plymouth  Rock  for  our  "  blarney-stone, "f  around  which 
to  cluster  as  a  nucleus  .We  give  no  dinners  to  our  eulogists, 
and  drink  no  wine  to  the  maves  of  predecessors,  ''  of  whom 
the  world  was  not  worthy."     We  neither  pay  nor   flatter 

^07  See  Note  107. 

*  Disc.  Pref.  pp.  xlviii.  xlix. 

t  "Blarney"  takes  its  name  from  the  castle  of  Blarney,  near  Cork,  in 
Ireland.  Tradition  says,  of  all  who  crept  up  to  the  highest  pinnacle  of 
this  castle,  on  their  hands  and  knees,  and  kissed  its  corner-stone,  that 
they  were  ever  after  "  endowed  with  extraordinary  powers  of  loquacity 
and  persuasion."  Brady's  Varieties  of  Literature.  London,  1826.  pp. 
26,  27.) 

Plymouth  Rock  has  gifted  its  devotees  with  loquacity  enough  ;  but  its 
powers  of  persuasion  are  beginning  to  fail.  Episcopacy  has  a  foothold 
in  Plymouth  at  last ! 


278  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

men,  to  give  us  gratuitous  defence  or  unprompted  praise. 
Years  ago  I  awakened  the  apprehensions  of  some  of  my  fel- 
low-Churchmen, lest  I  should  tell  too  muchybr  my  brethren, 
and  too  much  against  their  enemies ;  and  not  improbably  I 
may  do  the  same  again.  They  would  have  me  do,  as  Dr. 
Watts  would  have  had  Daniel  Neal  do,  in  his  history  of  New 
England  :  a  precious  item  among  curiosities  of  literature, 
which  will  bear,  and,  it  may  be,  requires  repetition.  Neal 
told  a  straighter  tale  about  the  colonies,  than  he  could  afford 
to  do  about  the  mother  country.  And  so  meagre  was  his 
gain,  that  he  was  duly  taken  to  task  for  not  **  mollifying" 
certain  *'  relations,"  and  not  "  leaving  out"  certain  ''  laws," 
the  bare  mention  of  which  was  "  insulting"  and  a  "  scan- 
dal."* So,  doubtless,  those  who  are  undesiredly  tender  of 
Puritan  reputation,  would  have  these  sketches  inscribed  on 
silken  velvet.  Fraternal  condolence  !  verily,  it  will  have  its 
reward.  Its  commiserated  objects  will  grasp  every  conces- 
sion with  characteristic  avidity,  trample  it  under  feet,  and 
turning  again  rend  the  giver. 

I  know  the  mode  of  requital  by  melancholy  experience  ; 
and  rather  than  be  wounded  afresh  by  its  grating  recom- 
penses, would  hazard  the  lacerations  of  expected  controver- 
sy. ^°^  Much  rather  would  I  endure  the  reproaches  of  the 
New  Englander,  e.  g.,  for  agreement  with  the  Church  and 
with  myself,  than  enjoy  such  equivocal  praise  as  it  bestows 
on  the  author  of  the  "  Mysteries  Opened."  Unblessed  are 
all  those  plaudits  which  are  given  to  one's  intellect,  at  the 
expense  of  his  consistency.  They  are  but  "  as  a  very  lovely 
song,  of  one  that  hath  a  pleasant  voice,  and  can  play  well 
on  an  instrument :"  a  single,  clear  "  Well  done"  of  con- 
science, is  worth  ten  thousand  thousand  of  them. 

So,   then,  I  aspire  not  to  the  adulation  of  those  whose 

^"8  See  Note  108. 
*  Mass.  Hist,  Coll.  1st  series,  v.  201. 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS.  377 

praise,  like  the  earth  in  Pharaoh's  plentiful  years,  would 
yield  "  by  handfuls,"  if  I  would  only  allow  these  pages  to 
be  as  lean  in  unpalatable  facts,  as  Pharaoh's  kine.  I  prefer 
to  be  condemned  as  a  vindicator  of  my  brethren,  sooner 
than  be  suspected  of  pandering  for  the  flattery  of  their  op- 
ponents. I  am  under  small  obligation  to  extenuate,  when 
my  faintest  allowance  will  be  transmuted  into  a  ringing 
accusation  :  "  dementia  liberum  arbitrium  habet ;  non 
sub  formula,  sed  ex  a^quo  et  bono  judicat;  et  absolvere  illi 
licet,  et  quanti  vult,  taxare  litem."*  I  would  rather  give  my 
*'  two  mites,"  unalloyed,  into  the  treasury  of  their  praise, 
who  toiled  and  sacrificed  and  died,  in  and  for  the  faith 
which  my  heart  cherishes  and  my  mind  reveres.  Embalmed 
be  their  memory,  venerated  their  example,  and  enduring  the 
influence  of  the  •"  doctrine,  discipline,  and  worship"  they 
dared  to  establish,  and  labored  to  maintain.  In  their  belief 
may  we  live,  with  their  hopes  may  we  die,  and  in  their 
"  goodly  fellowship"  may  we  be  numbered  in  "  glory  ever- 
lasting." And  of  the  Church  to  which  they  clung  with 
such  firm  zeal,  would  I  exclaim  in  the  beautiful  apostrophe 
of  the  dying  Tobit  :  (Tobit,  xiii.  14.) 

"  O  blessed  are  they  which  love  thee,  for  they  shall  rejoice  in  thy  peace  ! 
Blessed  are  they  which  have  been  sorrowful  for  all  thy  scourges ! 
For  they  shall  rejoice  for  thee,  when  they  have  seen  all  thy  glory  ; 
And  shall  be  glad  for  ever." 

P.  S. — It  may  not  be  amiss  to  add,  that  if  a  text  from 
the  Apocrypha  could  sanction  the  abuse  of  the  Church  in  a 
Puritan  oath,  as  was  seen  in  Letter  Second,  it  may  surely 
be  sufiicient  to  authorize  something  in  her  praise.  And, 
(another  thing,)  the  general  subject  of  the  present  letter 
might  have  carried  me  much  further  than  it  has  done,  in 
relation  to  ecclesiastical  "  pains  and  penalties,"  endured  by 
Churchmen  under  a  Puritan  regime.     It  were  not  diflicult, 

*  Seneca,  de  Clementia,  lib.  ii.  ch.  vii. 
13 


278  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

also,  to  show  how  Churchmen  suffered  in  their  temporal  and 
general  interests  from  those  who,  as  Mr.  Bancroft  would  fain 
persuade  us,  never  persecuted  for  an  opinion — he  might 
have  added,  to  round  off  both  his  sentence  and  sentiment — 
more  than  "  the  Holy  and  Apostolic  Court  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion." William  Bollan,  Esq.,  for  example,  suffered  not  a 
little  for  his  attachment  to  the  Episcopal  Church ;  although 
"  Mr.  Hancock  declared  in  the  House  of  Representatives, 
[of  Massachusetts,]  that  there  was  tw  man  to  whom  the  colo- 
nies were  more  indebted,  or  whose  friendship  had  been  more 
sincere."  He  had  been  the  faithful  and  unwearied  agent  of 
Massachusetts  in  England,  and  was  dropped  because  he  was 
a  Churchman.  ''  Mr.  Mauduit,"  says  Eliot,  "  succeeded 
him;  a  worthy  man,  but  whose  only  merit  to  raise  him  to 
this  station  was  his  being  a  leading  character  of  the  dissent- 
ers." That  is,  they  endured  Bollan  for  a  while,  as  they  did 
Gov.  Winthrop  ;  but  whenever  their  genuine  temper  could 
safely  break  out,  or  no  longer  be  repressed,  they  proscribed 
and  doomed  him  without  hesitation.  ''  "NV'e  shall  not  find 
any  occasion  against  this  Daniel,  except  we  find  it  against 
him  concerning  the  law  of  his  God."  They  exemplified  this 
text.* 

As  to  Mauduit's  pcrsowa/  insignificance,  Eliot  is  right  ; 
but  he  had  not  the  true  secret  of  his  appointment,  as  the 
agent  of  Massachusetts.  He  had  connections  with  men  in 
power,  and  he  was  wanted  to  oppose  an  American  bishop ! 
This  secret  is  let  out  in  a  letter  from  Thomas  Hollis.  See 
Peirce's  Hist.  Harv.  University,  pp.  2S0,  *281. 

»  See  Eiiofs  Biog.  Diet.  pp.  73,  74,  276.    Tudor's  Otis,  p.  115. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  279 


LETTER  XIV. 

I  HAVE  now  said  as  much,  perhaps,  on  the  subject  of  Pu- 
ritan treatment  of  Churchmen,  as  my  limits  allow  ;  and  far 
more  than  my  Puritan  neighbors  will  say  deserves  as  much 
as  bare  toleration.  But  I  cannot  as  yet  abandon  my  un- 
dertaking ;  which  is  to  prove,  that  if  any  should  be  silent 
on  the  *'  blarney-subjects"  of  tyranny,  oppression,  persecu- 
tion, and  the  like,  they  and  their  counterparts  should  be  the 
persons.  It  is  incumbent  on  me,  therefore,  to  complete  my 
argument,  by  showing  how  the  Puritans  treated  other  Chris- 
tian denominations,  against  whom  they  had  not  the  shadow 
of  a  reason  for  such  charges,  as  they  brought  against  the 
Church  of  England.  If  it  can  be  demonstrated,  that  it 
mattered  little  whether  one  were  Baptist,  Quaker,  Roman- 
ist, Gortonist,  Hutchinsonian,  Seeker,  Familist,  Morellian, 
or  even  Presbyterian,  so  long  as  he  differed  from  them- 
selves— if  a// *' dissenters"  from  their  Establishment  were, 
ipso  facto,  "  New-Lights"  and  "  Separatists,"  and  visited 
with  indiscriminate  denunciation,  then  the  question  has  all 
force.  What  right  have  such  people,  or  their  advocates, 
to  vilify  others  for  being  not  altogether,  nor  almost,  as  ex- 
clusive as  themselves  ? 

Speaking  of  their  treatment  of  those  who  dissented  from 
them,  Callender,  the  Baptist,  in  his  Historical  Discourse, 
bears  the  following  testimony.  "  The  chief  leaders  and  the 
major  part  of  the  people  soon  discovered  themselves  as  fond 
of  uniformity,  and  as  loath  to  allow  liberty  of  conscience  to 
such  as  differed  from  themselves,  as  those  from  whose  power 


280  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

they  had  fled."*  With  this  charge  from  his  denomination, 
in  view,  (which  seems  in  far  better  keeping  with  its  princi- 
ples, than  to  edit  and  endorse  a  history  of  the  Puritans,  as 
Mr.  Choules  has  done  that  of  Neal — and  far  less  absurd 
than  he  is  pleased  to  call  the  apostolical  succession, )^''^  I 
propose  to  show,  that  Callender  is  quite  correct.  I  cannot 
go  as  largely  into  the  history  of  the  Baptists,  languishing 
under  Puritan  oppressions,  as  I  did  into  that  of  Churchmen  ; 
nor  should  it  be  expected  of  me.  But  I  may  exhibit,  and  I 
can  exhibit,  some  characteristic  specimens  of  the  manner  in 
which,  to  adopt  the  language  of  the  Hon.  Mr.  Savage,  the 
nursing  fathers  of  the  Commonwealth  levelled  their  battery 
against  some  of  the  most  sincere  and  orthodox  Christians, 
according  with  them  even  in  the  mint,  anise,  aod  cummin  of 
all  forms,  or  rejection  of  forms,  except  this  single  one  of 
paedobaptism.t 

Belknap  could  dispute  Hutchinson  about  the  quarrel- 
someness of  the  Puritans  in  Holland  ;  and  he  certainly  was 
any  thing  but  a  friend  to  the  English  "  Babylon."  Yet  he 
does  not  hesitate  to  admit,  that  the  Puritans  had  been  but  a 
short  time  in  this  country,  before  they  outstripped  their 
'  dear  mother'  in  the  art  of  parental  subjugation. j:  He 
soon  after  says,  "  The  Anabaptists,  fined  and  banished, 
flocked  to  that  new  settlement,  and  many  of  the  Quakers 
also  took  refuge  there  ;  so  that  Rhode  Island  was  in  those 
days  looked  upon  as  the  drain  or  sink  of  New  England. "§ 

With  these  premises  let  us  now  contemplate  the  opening 
of  a  scene,  which,  says  Mr.  Savage,  with  manly  yet  pitying 
candor,  is  regarded  *'  with  painful  emotions,"  even  by  those 
who  hold  the  Puritans  "  in  the  highest  veneration." ||    Their 

'°3  See  Note  109. 

*  R.  I.  Hist.  Coll.  iv.  69.  t  Savage's  Wint.  ii.  174,  note. 

X  Farmer's  Belknap,  i.  43.  §  Ibid.  i.  47. 

II  See  his  excellent  note,  Savage's  Wint.  ii.  174. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  281 

battery  of  insinuations  and  assertions,  as  he  graphically 
calls  it,  is  levelled  against  that  inconsiderable  body,  from 
which  "  no  danger  could  be  rationally  apprehended."  They 
are  styled  in  their  classic  nomenclature,  **  incendiaries  of 
commonwealths,"  **  infectors  of  persons  in  main  matters  of 
religion,"  "  troublers  of  churches  in  all  places  where  they 
have  been  ;"  and  are  charged  with  fraudulently  concealing 
their  heresy,  **  as  other  heretics  used  to  do ;"  and  the  con- 
clusion of  the  whole  affair  is,  that  they  must  decamp  from 
the  colony — banishment  is  the  gentlest  mercy  to  be  expect- 
ed for  opinions  pronounced  literally  "  damnable."* 

Soon  after  this  law  was  enacted,  one  Thomas  Painter, 
(the  Baptists  should  memorize  him  as  their  proto-martyr,) 
who  had  led  a  somewhat  thriftless  life,  was  wrought  upon 
by  the  preaching  of  the  Baptists,  and  professed  a  belief  in 
their  tenets.  Thereupon  he  refused  to  let  his  child  be  bap- 
tized. Straightway  he  is  arraigned  before  a  Puritan  court 
of  High  Commission,'  and  commanded  to  abdicate  his  do- 
mestic patriarchate.  But  poor  though  Painter  might  be  in 
filthy  lucre,  he  was  not  devoid  of  that  which  in  his  judges 
was  a  glory,  resolved  and  dogged  repugnance  to  constrain- 
ing authority.  He  believed  as  fully  in  the  "  tenent"  of  re- 
sistance, as  they  did  in  the  ''  tenent"  of  persecution.  With 
him,  as  with  them,  saving  a  slight  difference  of  application 
only,  the  true  doctrine  was  "  rebellion  to  tyrants  is  obedience 
to  God."  So  his  untutored  spirit  must  be  initiated  into  the 
"  Discipline  of  the  Secret ;"  alias  into  that  state  of  salvation 
from  prisons  and  the  stake,  called  "  passive  obedience  and 
non-resistance."  His  purse,  (alas  poor  starveling  !)  was  too 
lean  for  flaying ;  so,  like  commuting  Shylock,  they  consent 
to  take  in  lieu  the  pound  of  flesh.  He  is  speedily  whipped  ; 
(probably  with  the  *'  corded"  and  "  knotted"  scourge,  pre- 

*  See  the  law  against  the  Baptists,  in  Hazard's  Coll.  i.  538.  Bene- 
dict's Baptists,  i.  359.  Knowles's  Roger  Williams,  201.  Also  for 
"damnable:"  Anc.  Charters,  &c.  120. 


282  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

scribed  in  his  day  as  error's  catholicon  ;*)  though  he  endured 
the  cuttings  of  the  lash  as  heroically  as  Bastwick  did  the 
abscission  of  his  ears,  and  with  equally  unflinching  hon- 
esty.t  But  this  mifi^ht  be  borne  rather  more  tolerably,  than 
"  the  oil  of  joy"  which  Puritan  commiseration  poured  into 
his  bleeding  wounds  '*  He  was  very  poor,"  says  Winthrop's 
Journal  ;  "  so  as  no  other  but  corporal  punishment  could 
be  fastened  upon  him,  he  was  ordered  to  be  whipped."  J 

And  that  was  not  all.  It  was  then  (Mr.  Bancroft  had 
this  in  his  eye,  perhaps,  when  he  says  the  Puritans  never 
persecuted  for  opinions  ;§  but  he  did  not  see  so  honestly 
as  even  Mr.  Felt,  who  on  p.  233  of  his  Salem  Annals,  says. 
Baptists  were  threatened  with  banishment,  and  in  fact  ordered 
to  leave  the  colony,  unless  they  renounced  their  opinions), 
it  was  then,  I  say,  deliberately  averred,  that  this  wretched 
sufferer  "  was  ordered  to  be  whipped,  not  for  his  opinion.'^ 
And  in  the  same  temper  was  it  similarly  said,  long  after- 
wards by  Dr.  Morse,  "  As  the  original  inhabitants  of  this 
State  [Rhode  Island]  were  persecuted,  at  least  in  their  own 
opinion,  for  the  sake  of  conscience,"  &.c.||  What!  not 
punished  for  opinions?  not  persecuted  for  conscience'  sake, 
except  as  they  imagined  themselves  to  be  so?  In  the 
name  of  justice,  for  what  then  did  they  mangle  Thomas 
Painter,  and  (perhaps  still  more  barbarously)  Obadiah 
Holmes  ?^  Oh,  the  opinions  of  such  men  required  them  to 
discountenance  a  ceremony,  which  the  magistrates,  supreme 
in    Church    as    well    as  State,  had  autocratically   exacted. 


*  Gough's  Quakers,  i.  347  ;  and  ii.  40,  49.  The  lashes,  Gough  says, 
were  as  thick  as  a  man's  little  finger,  and  the  stick  so  long  the  execu- 
tioner had  to  wield  it  with  both  hands. 

t  Harris's  Charles  I.  pp.  230,  231.  X  Savage's  Winth.  ii.  175. 

§  Bancroft,  i.  463.  ||   Geog.  1792,  p.  210. 

IT  "  I  can  fill  sheets  of  paper  with  the  sufferings  of  the  Baptists,  as 
well  as  others,  within  your  precincts,"  says  an  authority  as  old  as  1723. — 
See  Benedict's  Baptists,  i.  472. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  283 

They  declined  obeying,  and  so  were  punished,  not  for  their 
opinions,  but  for  resistance  to  lawful  authority.  Trans- 
cendent logic  !  I  wonder  if  it  was  learned  in  those  Uni- 
versities, where  *'  The  Holy  Roman  Church"  gives  infal- 
lible tuition  ;  for  her  boast  is,  that  she  never  persecutes 
heretics  for  their  errors.  No,  never.  She  only  brings  re- 
fractory children  to  the  powers  that  be ;  who  take  them 
from  her  maternal  arms,  and  deal  with  them,  after  the 
canon  of  the  Cambridge  and  Saybrook  Platforms,  "  as  the 
matter  shall  require." 

This  giving  over  into  the  hands  of  the  Civil  Power, 
those  witli  whom  the  Church  is  dissatisfied,  is  a  favorite 
fancy  of  Romanists ;  for  we  find  Sir  Thomas  More  ad- 
vancing it,  as  one  of  the  excellencies  of  his  model  com- 
monwealth. Of  the  citizens  of  Utopia,  when  visited  with 
sacerdotal  displeasure,  he  says,  "  if  they  do  not  very  quick- 
ly satisfy  the  priests  of  the  truth  of  their  repentance,  they 
are  seized  on  by  the  Senate,  and  punished  for  their  im- 
piety."* And  an  equally  favorite  fancy  does  it  appear 
to  have  been  with  the  Puritans,  in  their  model  common- 
wealth, to  make  ecclesiastical  sinners,  sinners  by  statute 
law.  Most  especially  was  this  their  fancy,  when  the  priest- 
hood sounded  a  key-note,  and  chose  to  have  it  so.  The 
jlamen  of  Massachusetts  was  as  dominant  as  the  jlamen  of 
baptism. f 

We  have  just  seen  what  a  sad  predicament  Baptists 
were  reduced  to  on  Puritan  soil,  by  the  formalities  of  legis- 
lation ;  and  Painter's  case  shows  us,  abundantly,  that  Pu- 
ritan statutes  against  heresy  were  something  more  than 
sounding   brass  or  a  tinkling  cymbal.     It  was  a  grievous 

*  More's  Utopia,  edit.  1684,  p.  187. 

t  Benedict  shows  that  the  Puritans  in  England  were  bitter  enemies 
of  the  Baptists,  as  well  as  the  Puritans  of  Massachusetts.  Even  Richard 
Baxter  was  a  fierce  foe  to  them.  Cromwell,  however,  rather  counte- 
nanced them. — Benedict,  i.  201,  204. 


284  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

law  by  wliich  they  suffered ;  and  the  more  so,  for  there  was 
coupled  with  it  a  sort  of  non-intercourse  or  exclusion  act, 
"  levelled"  against  strangers.  No  person  could  harbor  any 
stranger  more  than  a  few  days,  without  the  direct  permission 
of  the  magistrates.  These  laws  were  not  unrighteous  only, 
they  were  deplorably  impolitic.  Even  merchants,  as  Win- 
throp  confesses,  petitioned  for  their  repeal.  And  some  of 
the  religious  part  of  the  community  remonstrated,  because 
their  new-born  polity,  sustained  by  such  virtually  Romish 
methods,  was  suffering  in  the  esteem  of  the  more  tolerant 
at  home.  "  The  petitioners  complained  to  the  court,  of 
the  offence  taken  thereat  by  many  godly  in  England,-  and 
that  some  churches  there  did  thereupon  profess  to  deny  to 
hold  communion  with  such  of  our  churches  as  should  resort 
thither."*  This  combined  effort  made  out  a  strong  case, 
and  produced  a  deep  impression.  "  Many  of  the  court," 
writes  the  journalist,  "  were  well  inclined,  for  these  and 
other  considerations,  to  have  had  the  execution  of  tho^ 
laws  to  have  been  suspended,  [not  repealed  to  be  sure,  but 
suspension  is  better  than  nothing,]  suspended  for  a  season." 
It  was  an  auspicious  juncture.  Light  began  to  twinkle  in 
the  dark  canopy,  which  had  been  drawn  over  the  fortunes 
of  the  stranger  and  the  Baptist.  But  it  was  a  meteor  flash. 
The  Elders — the  cabinet  pontifical — are  informed  of  the 
progress  of  affairs.  They  forthwith  remonstrate,  and  as 
usual,  with  entire  effect:  their  dogmas  are  received  like  the 
prophecies  of  the  Delphic  Oracle.  The  petitioners  who 
had  begun  to  hope,  were  repulsed  with  rudeness.  No  re- 
traction is  made  in  the  language  of  persecution  :  no  pos- 
sible construction  allowed  to  be  placed  upon  it,  by  which 
lis  practical  severity  could  be  gently  modified.  The  Elders 
had  spoken  ;  and  the  wavering  court  became  as  imperious 
as  the  Divan  of  the  Sultan.     "  In  answer  to  the  petition  of 

*  Savage's  Wint.  ii.  250. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  285 

Em.  Downing,  &lc.,  it  is  ordered,  that  the  laws  in  their 
petition  mentioned,  shall  not  be  altered  or  explained  at 
all."* 

Ah  !  verily,  the  times  were  degenerate,  and  could  not  be 
trusted.  When  the  Elders  contemplated  the  encroach- 
ments of  heresy,  they  thought  more  of  Horace  than  of  the 
Millenium,  and  with  him  said, 

Damnosa  quid  non  imminuit  dies ; 
Aetas  parentum  pejor  avis  tulit, 
Nos  nequiores,  mox  daturos, 
Progeniem  vitiosorem. 

A  dozen  folios  like  Hakewill's,^'"  and  written  with  all  its 
power  as  well  as  charity,  could  not  have  induced  them  to 
believe,  that  mankind  might  be  safe  unless  clothed  with 
the  strait  waistcoat  of  Calvinism,  and  led  by  the  iron  col- 
lar of  Puritan  discipline.  With  them,  toleration  was  an 
abortion,  a  perfect  monstrosity.  It  was  a  root  out  of  a  dry 
ground — it  had  neither  form  nor  comeliness  in  their  eyes 
— there  was  no  beauty  in  it,  why  they  should  desire  it. 

And  here,  perhaps,  I  may  be  thought  careering  among 
fancies  of  my  own,  and  uttering  assertions  which  have 
no  more  substance  than  the  "  sabbattical  snow-broth," 
which  Milton  (I  believe)  used  to  call  every  sermon,  that 
was  not  redolent  of  the  isms  to  which  he  was  partial. 
We  must  soon  notice  one,  whom  our  Baptist  neighbors 
claim  as  the  father  of  toleration  in  this  country ;  and  a 
few  quotations  will  reflect  influence  on  what  has  been 
said  already,  and  be  no  unapt  introduction  to  what  is  to 
come  up  presently. 

That  toleration  was  excluded  from  the  very  idea  of  re- 
ligion by  Puritanism,  is  evident  from  the  fact  that,  in  the 
Larger  Catechism,  one  of  the  heinous  sins  against  Heaven 

"0  See  Note  110. 

*  Savage's  Wint.  ii.  265,  note. 
13* 


28G  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

under  the  Second  Commandment — a  virtual  commission  of 
idolatry — is  the  **  tolerating  a  false  religion."*  Many  will 
perhaps  look  into  some  edition  of  that  Catechism,  published 
now,  and  say  I  am  incorrect.  Let  them  know,  that  the 
loss  of  the  quoted  words  is  only  a  modern  improvement. 
The  un-expurgated  original  reads  as  I  state ;  as  any  one 
can  satisfy  himself,  by  examining  an  edition  as  early  as 
my  own  :  viz.  of  176!^.  When  the  sin  of  toleration  ceased 
to  be  a  sin,  I  know  not.t  The  edition  quoted  proves,  that 
toleration  continued  its  sinful  existence  to  the  verge  of  the 
American  Revolution.  Possibly  it  survived  it,  but  I  have 
not  the  means  of  ascertaining,  as  no  American  edition  of 
the  Assembly's  Catechism,  unless  of  quite  recent  date,  has 
fallen  into  my  hands.  The  Cambridge  and  Saybrook  Plat- 
forms virtually  entertain  the  idea  avowed  by  the  Catechism^ 
when  they  say  the  civil  magistrate  is  "  to  put  forth  his  coer- 
cive power  as  the  matter  shall  require."^  But  these,  too, 
have  fallen  into  desuetude,  or  have  been  taught  the  German 
doctrine  of  accommodation ;  and  when  they  began  to  give 
"  an  uncertain  sound"  it  is  equally  impossible  to  tell. 

It  is  of  little  consequence.  Suffice  it  to  know  what 
genuine  Puritanism  has  been ;  and  also,  that  its  disavowal 
of  toleration  has  been  no  inoperative  theory.  That  this  dis- 
avowal was  no  mere  idea,  is  evident  from  the  fact,  that  Pym 
once  boldly  broached  it  in  a  Puritanic  British  Parliament. 
He  **  asserted  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  legislature  to 
establish  true  religion  and  to  punish  false ;"  and  how  cor- 
dially they  believed  him,  and  acted  out  his  doctrine,  history 
has  recorded  with  many  a  sigh  and  tear.§ 

*  Compare  the  ministers'  petition  to  Parliament  in  1644,  to  suppress 
"  ruinating  schisms  and  damnable  heresies." — Rushworth's  Collections, 
V.  780. 

t  The  English  edition  of  Blair  and  Bruce  of  1831,  p.  268,  retains  it 
also.  I  have  seen  no  later  copy.  An  early  American  edition  I  have  not 
been  able  to  obtain,  after  many  efforts. 

X  Chap.  xvii.  Sect.  9.  §  Brit.  Crit.  xv.  p.  74. 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITAN fc).  287 

This,  how  ever,  is  quite  enough  toshow,  how,  in  England, 
Puritanism,  though  it  had  once  groaned  for  toleration,  made 
others  afterwards  groan  for  its  own  lack  of  it.  Come  we 
now  to  the  land  where  it  was  (poetically)  an  exile  for  the 
pearl  of  great  price,  the  enjoyment  of  an  unmolested  con- 
science. Did  it  there  display  no  anxiety  to  molest  the  con- 
sciences of  others  ?     Let  us  see. 

And  first  of  all  Master  Cotton,  whom  thy  contempora- 
ries esteem  so  "  famous,"*  I  call  thee  upon  the  stand.  Hear 
his  "  awful  words,"  as  Shepard  truly  characterizes  them ; 
though  he  quotes  them  in  his  ''  Eye-Salve,"  merely  to  star- 
tle his  readers  with  Cotton's  formidable  name.  "  It  was 
toleration  that  made  the  world  anti-christian,  and  the 
Church  never  took  hurt  by  the  punishment  of  heretics." 
Again :  *'  The  Lord  keep  us  from  being  bewitched  with 
the  whore's  cup,  lest  while  we  seem  to  detest  and  reject  her 
with  open  face  of  profession,  we  do  not  bring  her  in  by  a 
back  door  of  toleration,  and  so  come  at  last  to  drink  deeply 
in  the  cup  of  the  Lord's  wrath,  and  be  filled  with  the  cup  of 
her  plagues."t 

Shepard  was  a  worthy  pupil  of  Master  Cotton  ;  for  he 
goes  if  possible  a  step  beyond  him,  and  ascribes  toleration 
to  the  Father  of  Lies,  in  propria  persona.  '*  'Tis  Satan's 
policy,"  says  he,  "  to  plead  for  an  indefinite  and  boundless 
toleration ;  as  Chemnitius  excellently  shows  from  those 
words,  Mark  i.  24,  '  Let  us  alone.'  He  calls  it  diaholica 
machinatio  in  conciliationibus  religionum  ;  i.  e.  Christ  may 
have  his  kingdom,  if  he  will  let  Satan  alone  with  his,  and 
so  both  of  them  live  lovingly  and  quietly  together. "t     So 

*  ''  A  glory  to  both  Englands/'  says  Hubbard.  N.  E.  p.  553. — Puri- 
tans have  never  been  niggardly  in  their  praises  of  one  another. 

t  Bloody  Tenent  washed  &c.,  pp.  132,  192. — In  his  tract  against 
Hendon's  animadversions,  he  calls  toleration  "  a  more  filthy  harlot  than 
.was  Helena." — Tract,  1656,  p.  5. 

t  Eye-Salve,  an  Election  Sermon  in  1672,  p.  14. 


288  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

Shepard  not  only  asserts  his  doctrine,  but  with  the  help  of 
the  profound  Chemnitius  establislies  it,  with  due  exegetical 
propriety.  My  readers  may  perhaps  wish  to  know  whether 
this  is  the  same  "good  hater"  of  persecution,  who  said  that 
Bishop  Laud,  (not  yet  Archbishop,)  when  rebuking  him, 
''  shook  as  if  he  had  been  haunted  with  an  ague  fit,  and, 
in  his  apprehension,  by  reason  of  his  extreme  malice  and 
secret  venom."  For  the  credit  of  human  nature,  I  am 
enabled  to  say,  not  exactly.  However,.he  was  his  son^  and 
"  distinguished  for  his  erudition,  prudence,  modesty,  and 
integrity."*  Eliot  calls  the  Eye-salve  sermon,  at  the  elec- 
tion for  Governor,  <fec.,  "  a  constellation  of  wisdom,  learn- 
ing, and  faithfulness. "t  Had  Eliot  lived  in  1672,  he  could 
hardly  have  pitched  his  eulogy  upon  a  higher  key  ;  and  I 
hope  this  will  be  remembered,  in  connexion  with  other  quo- 
tations from  his  Dictionary — those  for  example  which  relate 
to  Mauduit  and  Wm.  Bollan. 

We  see  how  fearless  Shepard  was  in  1672.  That  period 
must  have  been  a  famous  one  :  the  mantle  of  Endicott,  per- 
haps, formed  one  of  its  venerated  relics.  The  very  year 
succeeding  heard  as  loud  thunder  against  this  luckless  sub- 
ject of  toleration.  "I  look  upon  toleration,"  says  President 
Oakes  of  Harvard  University,  (and  that  gentleman,  when  a 
minister,  is  considered  ex  officio  the  Congregational  bishop 
of  Massachusetts,)  "I  look  upon  toleration,  as  the  first-born 
of  all  abominations."  This  too  was  said  in  an  Election 
sermon;  and  as  that,  according  to  Belknap,  "may  gene- 
rally be  accounted  the  echo  of  the  public  voice,"  it  is  the 
unanimous  dictum  of  a  Puritan  community. t 

Of  all  Puritan  classics,  however,  on  the  subject  of  tole- 
ration, Mr.  Ward,  the  author  of  the  "  Simple  Cobbler  of 
Aggawam,"  [Ipswich,]  bears  away  the  palm.     He  makes  it 

*  Allen's  Diet.  p.  690.  t  Eliot's  Diet.  p.  426. 

t  Farmer's  Belknap,  i.  45. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  ogg 

SO  ineffably  revolutionary,  that  it  empties  on  earth  the  con- 
tents of  the  bottomless  pit,  and  overturns  the  Throne  itself 
of  the  Absolute  Supreme.  Speaking  in  one  place  of  a  shoal 
of  sects,  which  toleration  would  disenthral,  he  describes  it 
as,  "  In  a  word,  room  for  hell  above  ground."  In  another 
he  says,  in  a  figure  I  never  saw  paralleled,  ''To  authorize 
an  untruth  by  a  toleration  of  State,  is  to  build  a  sconce 
against  the  walls  of  heaven,  to  batter  God  out  of  his  chair."* 

I  will  give  but  one  quotation  more,  and  that  shall  be 
from  Hubbard,  the  historian,  to  show  how  the  Puritans 
abated  their  intolerance,  by  the  most  studied  gradations — 
conforming  it  carefully  to  those  times,  when,  as  Justice 
Story  has  told  us,  persecution  became  less  frequent  because 
it  was  less  safe.  "  And  indeed,"  says  he,  "let  the  experi- 
ence of  all  reformed  churches  be  consulted  withal,  and  it 
will  appear  that  disorder  and  confusion  of  the  Church  will 
not  be  avoided,  by  all  the  determination,  advice,  and  counsel, 
of  synods  or  other  messengers  of  churches,  unless  they  be  a 
little  acuatedf  by  the  civil  authority.  All  men  are  naturally 
so  wedded  to  their  own  apprehensions,  that  unless  there  be 
a  coercive  power  to  restrain,  the  order  and  rule  of  the 
Gospel  will  not  be  attended. "| 

And  these  are  the  men,  who  thought  Archbishop  Laud 
"the  chief  of  sinners,"  because,  esteeming  themselves  too 
fondly  "  wedded  to  their  own  apprehensions,"  he  employed 
some  of  their  own  beloved  "  coercive  power,"  and  "  acu- 
ated"  church  discipline  "a  little"  by  the  civil  authority, 
that  they  might  attend  to  what  he,  as  their  spiritual  guide, 
deemed  the  Gospel's   order  and  rule!     These  are  the  men, 

*  Simple  Cobbler,  new  Edit.,  pp.  6,  II.  The  first  edit,  dates  from 
1647. 

t  Many  may  suppose  this  a  mistake  for  actuated,  but  I  am  right: 
and  so  is  Hubbard.  "  Acuated"  means  made  sharp  as  a  needle.  And 
that  is  what  Hubbard  wished  to  say.     Only  he  put  in  a  salvo — "  a  little." 

I   New  England,  p.  551. 


290  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

who,  without  the  slightest  hesitancy,  could  ascribe  "  ex- 
treme malice  and  secret  venom"  to  one,  who  was  bound  by 
oath  to  maintain  uniformity,  and  therefore  declined  permit- 
ting them  to  roam  about  the  land,  lawless  as  the  wind,  and 
to  mildew  Church  and  State  ad  libitum  with  their  blasts  of 
vain  doctrine !  These  are  the  men,  who,  or  whose  fathers, 
had  brought  Laud  to  the  block,  because  he  was  as  imprac- 
ticable as  they  themselves  were  !  Laud  would  not  listen  to 
the  remonstrances  of  his  enemies  :  they  even  surpassed  him  ; 
for  they  would  not  listen  to  the  remonstrances  of  their  friends. 
Their  best  friends  in  England  remonstrated  with  them,  in 
behalf  of  the  oppressed  and  persecuted  Baptists  and  Qua- 
kers. But  it  was  all  in  vain.  "  O  the  sweetness  of 
supremacy,"  says  old  Fuller,  "  though  in  never  so  small  a 
circuit  !"*  "  Intolerant  principles  were  so  deeply  implanted 
in  the  inhabitants  of  New  England,  that  all  efforts  to  eradi- 
cate them,  at  this  period,  proved  ineffectual."! 

Such  were  the  men,  who  denounced  the  intolerance  of 
the  Church  of  England.!  But  a  few  years  previous,  and 
you  would  have  thought  them  (in  words  that  is,)  the  most 
disinterested  champions  for  liberty  of  conscience  the  world 
ever  saw.  Toleration  !  oh  it  was  their  favorite  and  ever  un- 
worn theme,  when  they  wanted  to  inflict  their  "  levellisme"§ 
in  Church  and  State  upon  an  audience  in  a  cathedral,  whose 
revenues  they  might  spoil  as  lawfully  as  Israelites  could 
Egyptians. 

But,  one  was  now  approaching,  who  would  make  it  a 
theme  even  for  the  "  Meeting-House,"   and  commend  it  to 

*  Fuller's  Ch.  Hist.  iii.  141. 

f  Hannah  Adams'  New  England,  p.  117.     Wynne's  America,  1.91. 

t  Well  did  Roger  Williams  remind  them  of  this.  *'  Yourselves  pre- 
tend libertie  of  conscience  ;  but  alas,  it  is  but  selfe,  the  great  God  selfe, 
only  to  yourselves."  Mass.  H.  Coll.  1st  Ser.  i.  281. — Knowles's  R. 
Williams,  p.  399. 

§  See  the  expressive  term  in  Hutchinson's  Collect,  pp.  300,  301. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  091 

their  own  ears  in  such  piercing  words,  that  like  some  of  old, 
(Luke  iv.  28,  29,)  who  professed  greater ^wn'^y  than  others, 
not  a  few  "  were  filled  with  wrath,  and  rose  up  and  thrust 
him  out  of  the  city."  "  He,  passing  through  the  midst  of 
them,  went  his  way" — was  not  to  be  found,  when  a  warrant 
was  issued  to  arrest  him — or  Witch-hill,  or  one  of  the  sum- 
mits of  Tri-mountain,  might  have  told  a  tale,  to  make  the 
rest  of  St.  Luke's  language  applicable — "  cast  him  down 
headlong." 

I  cannot  attempt  a  full  sketch  of  the  far-famed  Roger 
Williams.  Mr.  Bancroft  has  devoted  many  pages  to  him, 
and  calls  him  "  the  apostle  of  intellectual  liberty  ;"*  while 
professor  Knowles  has  written  his  memoirs,  with  pains-taking 
zeal  and  some  fortitude,  in  a  duodecimo  of  389  pages,  with 
an  appendix  of  nearly  fifty  more.  Mr.  Knowles'  book  is 
well  worthy  perusal,  by  all  who  want  the  Baptist  version  of 
those  vituperations,  both  legislative  and  ecclesiastical,  written 
and  spoken,  ancient  and  modern,  with  which  the  Puritans 
and  their  champions  have  assailed  the  respectable,  and  now 
very  extensive  denomination,  of  which  he  was  a  member. 
And  I  have  no  very  distressing  doubts,  whether  many  of  the 
Baptists  themselves  would  not  think  that  Mr.  Choules  might 
spend  his  time  more  profitably,  in  reading  some,  at  least,  of 
the  pages  of  his  brother  Knowles,  than  in  revising  and  per- 
petuating those  of  Daniel  Neal. 

Williams  began  life  with,  if  possible,  more  thorough 
Puritanism  than  his  brethren.  But,  coupled  with  their  at- 
tachment to  their  customary  dogmas  in  theology,  he  cher- 
ished some  sentiments  which  augured  unfavorably  to  their 
permanent  ascendency  and  prolonged  intolerance.  He  was 
suspicious,  e.  g.  of  certain  meetings  of  the  ministers  ;  "  fear- 

*  How  can  Puritan  writers  wonder,  that  Ap.  Laud's  treatment  of 
Puritans  should  read  as  it  does  to  Churchmen,  when  an  author  Uke  J.  Q. 
Adams  calls  Roger  Williams  a  revolutionist,  and  the  setter  up  of  a  con- 
venticle. 


292  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

ing  that  they  might  grow  in  time  to  a  presbytery  or  super- 
intendency,  to  the  prejudice  of  the  churches'  liberties."* 
Presbytery,  some  how  or  other,  seems  to  be  a  fearful  thing, 
whether  to  rulers  or  the  ruled,  the  monarch  or  the  people. 
King  James  dreaded  it,  because,  said  he,  "Then,  Jack  and 
Tom  and  Will  and  Dick  shall  meet  and  censure  me  and  my 
Council."!  Roger  Williams  dreaded  it,  as  a  foe  to  popular 
liberty.  And  he  is  not  alone  in  his  apprehension  ;  particu- 
larly among  his  own  denomination  at  the  present  day. 
Even  now,  it  is  feared,  that  voluntary  meetings  of  the  minis- 
ters, meetings  which  the  churches  neither  advise  nor  author- 
ize, may  usurp  power  that  never  was  acceded  to  them,  and 
sway  an  influence  rather  too  pontifical."'  Williams  knew, 
by  experience  probably,  that  ecclesiastics  become  as  it  were 
professionally  positive :  and  if  they  appear  to  be,  or  profess 
to  be,  more  devout  than  others,  are  apt  to  claim  proportion- 
ate immunities. I  Perhaps  he  therefore  thought,  they  should 
not  associate  in  business  conclave,  but  as  representing  con- 
gregations, and  should  allow  a  neutralizing  mixture  of  the 
more  democratic  laity.  But  he  was  not  jealous  of  cumula- 
tive power  in  ecclesiastics  only,  he  was  quite  as  much  so  of 
self-enlarging  prerogatives  in  magistrates.  These  mighty 
and,  as  the  event  proves  most  mournfully,  did  become  law- 
givers for  a  religious  dispensation.  And  here,  no  doubt, 
was  the  core  of  his  gangrenous  heresy.  The  fathers  of  New 
England   hated   the  union  of  Church   and   State,  most  de- 

"1  See  Note  111. 

*  Knowles,  p.  56.  t  Fuller's  Ch.  Hist.  iii.  188. 

i  No  wonder  that  Cotton  Mather,  who  would  have  made  a  tolerable 
pope,  said  he  had  a  windmill  in  his  head. — Magnalia.  ii.  430. — There 
were  far  worse  sinners  in  New  England  than  Roger,  whose  names 
Mather  could  not  write,  as  he  says,  "  with  any  blots  upon  them." — Mag- 
nalia, i.  221. — But  Roger  was  a  heretic  oi  the  first  magnitude,  and  a 
Puritan  could  no  sooner  forget  to  blast  him,  than  would  the  Inquisition. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  293 

voutly,  on  their  natal  soil.     But  they  effectually  reversed  the 
adage  of  Horace,  that  those — 

"  who  through  the  venturous  ocean  range. 


Not  their  own  passions,  but  the  climate  change." 

They  felt  their  minds  "  new-opened,"  by  the  stirring  and 
cleansing  winds  of  this  busiest  of  atmospheres  ;  and  found 
that  the  power  of  the  magistrate,  if  it  might  '*  acuate" 
Church-law  a  little  for  themselves,  could  prevent,  as  Hub- 
bard coolly  tells  us,  disorder  and  confusion. 

But  Roger  Williams  would  not  give  place  to  this  doc- 
trine by  subjection  :  no,  not  for  an  hour.  Suum  cuique  was 
his  uncompromising  motto  :  Puritan  frowns,  menaces,  an- 
athemas,* and  "  bloody  tenets,"  to  the  contrary  notwith- 
standing. The  magistrate  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  of- 
fences of  mere  opinions,  was  his  stern  position  ;  and  would 
have  been  to  this  day,  though  an  ex-president  of  these 
States,  who  can  see  no  sin  in  disturbing  our  southern 
brethren  to  the  utmost,  should  pronounce  him  revolutionary 
and  seditious. t  He  is  represented  as  a  truly  mild  and  inof- 
fensive man,  conciliatory,  forgiving,  and  liberal ;  but  im- 
practicable as  an  oak  under  forceful  tutoring,  and  bold  as  a 
lion,  to  look  into  the  very  face  and  eyes  of  indignant  and 
conspiring  opposition.  But  he  was  unsustained ;  though 
loved  and  honored  almost  to  veneration,  by  a  flock  of  which 
he  was  the  pastor.  He  flies  for  a  time  to  Plymouth  ;  after 
a  while  returns,  is  welcomed  by  his  intimates  with  eager  and 
fond  solicitude,  is  harassed  by  his  former  foes,  and  at  length 
compelled  to  take  refuge  in  banishment,  from  a  storm  whose 
*'  floods"  would  have  "  cruelly  drowned"  him. 

Yet,  testifies  Mr.  Knowles,  (p.  75)  and,  so  far  as  I  know, 

*  Hubbard  says  his  understanding  was  fly-blown! — New  England, 
p.  189. 

t  See  Hon.  J.  Q.  Adams'  Historical  Discourse,  pp.  25-30. — Boston 
1843. 


294  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

altogether  without  rebuke,  "  He  was  not  accused  while  at 
Plymouth,  or  at  Salem,  of  any  deviation  from  the  established 
principles  of  the  churches  on  points  of  faith,  much  less  was 
there  any  impeachment  of  his  moral  character."*  He  who 
was  *'  His  Eminence,"  beyond  any  titled  cardinal,  (Master 
Cotton)  thoroughly  disrelished  him,  as  we  can  with  infinite 
ease  imagine.  Cotton  denounced  him,  (O  remember  it,  ye 
anti-monarchical  American  annals  !)  as  guilty  of  lese-majes- 
ty ;  that  terrible  crime  against  the  emperors  of  Rome. 
Cotton  instigated  the  magistrates,  in  whose  bosoms  pity 
lingered ;  and  the  fate  of  Williams  was  inevitable.  Nay, 
more,  the  tyrannical  edict  which  exiled  him  was  vindicated, 
and  doubtless  by  Cotton's  Nov-Anglo-Jesuitical  logic,  **  not 
as  a  punishment  for  opinion,  or  as  a  restraint  on  freedom  of 
conscience."!  ^^^ 

His  departure  from  Salem  "  in  secrecy  and  haste"  in  the 
dead  of  winter  ;  his  private  letter  that  Winthrop  ventured  at 
his  own  peril  to  address  him  ;  his  temporary  sojourn  at  See- 
konk ;  his  warning  from  the  governor  of  Plymouth  to  re- 
move to  a  greater  distance ;  his  voyage  in  a  canoe  ;  his  not 
knowing  '*  what  bread  or  bed  did  mean;"  his  entertainment 
by  savages,  less  harsh  than  his  Christian  brethren  ;  the  soli- 
tary piece  of  gold  which  a  "  great  and  pious  soul"  put  into 
the  hands  of  his  poor  wife — his  wants,  his  perils,  his  suffer- 
ings, his  perseverance,  and  his  patience ;  his  steady  piety, 
and  freedom  from  the  revenge  of  angry  and  abusive  mur- 
murs, though  his  sentence  of  banishment  never  was  revoked  ; 
his  paying  Massachusetts  good  for  evil,  by  defending  her 
against  the  Indians, t  though  Massachusetts  repaid  him  evil 
-"  See  Note  112. 

*  "  His  opinions  were  his  only  crimes." — Sparks'  Am.  Biog.  2d  ser. 
iv.  55. — Yet  we  are  assured  the  Puritans  never  persecuted  opinions! 

t  Bancroft,  i.  pp.  374,377. 

X  See  Verplanck's  Discourses,  pp.  28,  29,  and  his  authorities.  Also 
Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  Ser.  i.x.  177. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  295 

for  good — hardly  granting  him  a  bare  passage  through  her 
territory,  on  his  way  home  from  England — refusing  pass- 
ports to  his  people,  which  she  granted  to  every  body  else — 
refusing  to  sell  him  powder  for  the  defence  of  his  life,  in  a 
*'  most  bloody  and  massacring  time,"  though  she  could  bui/ 
powder  herself,  and  not  pay  for  it  "  for  divers  years"* — these 
numerous  and  diversified  particulars  form,  all  together,  such 
a  striking,  and,  as  the  term  goes,  romantic  assemblage,  as 
might  ''point"  more  "  morals,"  and  "  adorn"  more  "  tales," 
than  a  thousand  and  one  wild  fictions.  But  I  cannot  dwell 
upon  them,  further  than  to  refer  to  the  authorities  already 
mentioned — to  his  long  pathetic  letter  in  the  first  volume  of 
the  first  series  of  the  Mass.  Hist.  Collections, t  and  to  quote 
the  following  verses,  descriptive  of  his  condition  at  Prov- 
idence, from  Hopkins'  History  of  that  ancient  town.t  Little 
as  any  fastidious  reader  may  commend  their  poetry,  it  must 
be  a  dull  heart  which  cannot  be  awakened  by  them  to  salu- 
tary sympathies.     The  verses  were  written  in  1765. 

Nor  house,  nor  hut,  or  fruitful  field, 

Nor  lowing  herd,  nor  bleating  flock. 
Or  garden  that  might  comfort  yield. 

No  cheerful  early-crowing  cock. 
No  orchard  yielding  pleasant  fniit. 

Or  laboring  ox,  or  useful  plough. 
Nor  neighing  steed,  or  browsing  goat, 

Or  grunting  swine,  or  foodful  cow. 
No  friend  to  help,  no  neighbor  nigh. 

Nor  healing  medicine  to  restore  ; 
No  mother's  hand  to  close  the  eye. 

Alone,  forlorn,  and  most  extremely  poor. 

Puritanism  has  complained,  most  sorely,  of  the  rocks  of 
collision  §  which  it  was  destined  to  encounter  on  English 

*  Hutchinson's  Collec.  pp.  277,  8. — Benedict's  Baptists,  i.  466. — 
Felt's  Salem,  p.  89. — Savage's  Winthrop.  ii.  211. 
t  Also  Knowles's  R.  Williams,  p.  393,  &c. 
X  See  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  ser.  ix.  171. 
§  Cowper's  Odyssey,  xii.  72. 


296  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

territory.  Against  many  a  rock  as  terrible,  did  it  dash  of- 
fenders upon  its  own.  Such  were  some  of  the  penalties  to 
which,  in  the  day  of  its  power,  it  doomed  an  '*  apostle  of 
intellectual  liberty."  And  such,  then,  under  its  most  un- 
friendly auspices,  was  the  formal,  and,  one  might  almost 
say,  tragic  beginning  of  the  denomination  of  Baptists  in  our 
country. 

Roger  Williams  is  the  apex  rerum,  to  whom  they  look 
up  with  filial  veneration.  True,  Williams  was  not  like 
John  Smith  of  Amsterdam,  a  Se-Baptist ;  that  is,  a  baptizer 
of  his  own  self.*  He  was  immersed  by  Mr.  Ezekiel  Holli- 
man,  an  unbaptized  layman  according  to  Baptist  theory, 
and  "  a  mean  fellow,"  according  to  Puritan  annals  ;t  where- 
upon he  took  upon  himself  the  prerogative  of  immersing 
Holliman,  and  some  ten  besides.  This,  as  Mr.  Knowles  in- 
forms us,  was  the  foundation  of  "  the  first  Baptist  church 
in  America,  and  the  second,  as  it  is  stated,  in  the  British 
empire."!  However,  in  after  life,  though  he  had  some  rough 
words  with  the  Q,uakers,§  Mr.  Williams  seems  to  have 
grown  almost  a  Quaker  himself,  in  his  notions  of  sacra- 
mental ceremonies  ;  for  he  would  not  celebrate  the  Com- 
munion, nor  unite  in  it  when  celebrated  by  his  brethren. ||  "^ 

Still,  notwithstanding  his  equivocal  beginning^  and  his 

stray  conclusion,  the  Baptists  look  up  to  him,  as,  in  this 

country,  their  ''  Father  of  the  Faithful" ;  and  trace  in  him, 

and  through  him,  the  origin,  rise,  and  permanent  establish- 

^•3  See  Note  113. 

*  Davis's  Morton,  151.  Note. 

t  See  Hubbard's  New  England,  p.  338. 

X  Knowles's  Memoir,  pp.  165, 166. 

§  Savage's  Winthrop,  i.  41,42.     Note.         |I  Knowles,  p.  388. 

IT  Equivocal,  even  on  the  theory  of  lay-baptism.  For  how  could  Mr. 
Holliman,  who,  according  to  Baptist  notions,  was  not  baptized  himself, 
administer  baptism  to  another  in  the  same  predicament  ]  Baptism,  even 
if  laymen  may  administer  it,  must  be  performed  by  some  one  who  has  re- 
ceived it  himself 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  297 

ment  of  their  persuasion,  to  oppressing,  persecuting,  and 
banishing  Puritans. 

Now  as  all  familiar  with  the  ecclesiastical  history  of 
New  England  are  bound  to  be  aware  of  this,  I  would  fain 
ask  Mr.  Choules,  (not  yet  having  had  an  opportunity  to  ex- 
anaine,  in  detail,  his  edition  of  Neal,)  whether  he  has  added 
a  new  chapter  to  his  author  by  adoption,  so  as  to  illustrate 
this  crowning  fact  in  the  history  of  his  own  denomination  ? 
And  to  this  question,  I  would  most  respectfully  add  another  to 
Mr.  Knowles,*  viz.,  How  a  man  so  sensible  and  independent 
as  his  bearing  marks  him,  can  speak  so  openly  of  Williams' 
manifold  sufferings,  and  then  (for  thus  it  looks,)  shrinking 
from  the  decree  of  reprobation  assigned  all  plain  questioners 
of  Puritan  sanctity,  soften  and  varnish  Puritan  harshness, 
under  the  plea  that  it  was  the  result  of  undoubted  sin- 
cerity  ?f 

If  Puritanism  can  enjoy  the  privilege  of  having  Baptist 
editors,  and  Baptist  extenuators,  because  of  its  genuine  sin- 
cerity, I  must  be  permitted  to  hope,  that  the  same  privilege 
will  ere  long  be  extended  to  Ap.  Laud.  I  am  quite  sure, 
that  a  perusal  of  the  history  of  Endicott's  administration| 
would  prepare  such  gentlemen  to  find  very  many  fewer  loca 
vexata,  to  be  unravelled  in  the  life  of  the  Archbishop,  than 
now  they  are  inclined  to  imagine.  Nay,  if  they  will  add  to 
sympathy  with  their  own  brethren,  during  that  "  reign  of 
terror,"  a  sympathy  with  their  fellow-sufferers  the  Quakers, 
I  should  almost  be  afraid,  that  wjien  they  afterwards  came  to 

*  I  did  not  know,  when  this  was  written,  that  Prof  Knowles  was 
dead. 

t  Gammell,  p.  55,  seems  inclined  to  make  the  same  mistake. — The 
Hon.  Mr.  Gray  also  ;  who  would,  I  fear,  deny  the  same  excuse  to  Ap. 
Laud,  cum  totis  viribus.     See  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  Series,  viii.  198. 

t  "  The  New  England  churches,"  says  Daniel  Neal  himself,  "  would 
neither  suffer  the  Baptists  to  live  quietly  in  their  communion,  nor  separate 
peaceably  from  it." — New  England,  i.  285. 


298  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

Laud's  bloody  passage  to  his  grave,  their  eyes  might  moist- 
en with  a  tear,  and  their  hearts  allow,  that  through  the  gate 
of  death  he  had  gone  to  a  joyful  resurrection.  For  surely, 
if  there  be  any  virtue  in  this  plea  of  sincerity,  it  forms  all 
the  apology  the  history  of  the  Archbishop  can  ever  want ; 
since  even  Mr.  Bancroft  admits  his  honesty,  as  has  been  ob- 
served before,'"^  and  Neal,  (be  it  remembered  to  his  honor!) 
that  he  was  no  Papist.*  Beyond  a  doubt,  as  Messrs.  Grant 
and  Short  effectually  demonstrate,  the  former  in  particular, 
blunt,  strait-forward  honesty  was  a  prominent  characteristic 
of  this  martyr  to  the  sanguinary  rage  of  his  Puritan  ene- 
mies.! It  was  his  impatience  of  quirks  and  trickery,  evasion 
and  double  dealing,  Jesuitry,  in  fine,  of  all  sorts,  whether 
Popish  or  Protestant,  which  made  him  utter  such  sharp  and 
hasty  language,  in  the  presence  of  his  reviler,  Shepard,  (a 
reviler  like  the  Mathers  in  a  religious  diary,)  and  threw  the 
warm  blood  of  an  open  heart  into  his  face.  It  was  not 
"  extreme  malice  and  secret  venom,"  which  made  his  coun- 
tenance flush  so  ruddily.  He  charged  Shepard,  as  Shepard's 
own  confession  shows,  "  to  deal  plainly  with  him"  ;  and 
complained  bitterly  of  the  cheats  and  equivocations  which 
had  been  palmed  off  upon  him.;]:  The  recollection  of  these 
made  him  blush,  perhaps,  for  shame,  and  grow  red  with  in- 
dignation. Cold-blooded  malice,  and  venom  nursed  in  a 
malignant  heart,  would  have  made  him  turn  pale;  or  try  to 
lure  a  victim  within  its  toils  by  slow  and  infernal  arts.  I 
honor  Laud  all  the  more  for  his  quickness,  his  demand  of 
honesty,  and  his  warmth  glowing  from   his  very   features. 

1'*  See  Note  114. 

*  Grant's  Eng.  Ch.  ii.  230.    Note. 

t  Grant's  Eng.  Ch.  ii.  229-234     .Short's  Hist.  ii.  129-135. 

I  Sewel  gives  us  a  specimen.  They  would  have  "  tobacco-pipes, 
bread  and  cheese,  and  cold  meat,"  on  a  table  at  their  meetings ;  and  if 
the  officers  came  in  upon  them,  would  fall  to  smoking  and  eating  with 
all  their  might. — Sewel's  Quakers,  p.  473. 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS.  299 

But  who  would  not  think  it  a  well  nigh  desperate  business, 
to  demand  allowance  for  Laud's  firm  devotion  to  what  he 
sincerely  "  believed  a  solemn  duty  to  God,"  viz.,  "  to  employ 
force  if  necessary  for  the  suppression  of  false  doctrines"? 
Who  would  not  call  it  folly,  to  ask  for  a  charitable  construc- 
tion of  his  conduct  in  this  *^  suppression,"  because  he 
thought,  as  with  the  Puritan  he  most  sincerely  did,  "  that 
he  who  permitted  error  to  be  believed  and  preached,  was 
chargeable  with  a  participation  in  the  guilt?"*  And  yet, 
says  Mr.  Knowles  of  the  banishment  of  Roger  Williams, 
''  We  ought  to  rejoice  that  we  can  ascribe  it  to  a  sincere, 
though  misdirected  desire,  to  uphold  the  Church  and  ad- 
vance the  honor  of  God.  Were  these  excellent  men  now 
alive,  they  would  be  foremost  in  lamenting  their  own  error."t 
And  do  you  verily  believe  so,  my  good  Baptist  neighbor  ? 
Then  read  the  address  of  the  Hon.  Mr.  Adams,  before  the 
celebrated  Historical  Society  of  Massachusetts,  at  so  late  a 
date  as  A.  D.  1843 ;   and  I  will  pause  for  your  reply. 

Ah,  this  argument  about  sincerity  is  a  two-edged  sword: 
it  must  be  handled  warily.  Sincerity  !  Cromwell  boasted 
of  it,  and  the  Autocrat  of  all  the  Russias  glories  in  it. 
Glad  enough  would  Prince  Metternich  be  to  find  it  an 
excuse  for  anti-republican  transgressions :  he  could  then 
forge,  most  honorably,  a  fresh  "  Holy  Alliance,"  which 
would  dismember  the  United  States  by  a  rule  well  known 
in  Poland.  Sincerity  !  it  is  the  first  of  all  hobbies  to  the 
usurper,  the  despot, t  the  radical,  the  infidel,  the  atheist. 
Abner  Kneeland,  in  his  infamous  paper,  avowed  the  firm 
determination  of  many  on  Puritan  soil,  (! !)   not   to  bow, 

*  Compare  Knowles,  p.  76,  for  the  quoted  words. 

t  Knowles,  p.  80. 

X  Cardinal  Richelieu  died  with  "  a  solemn  protestation,  appealing  to 
the  last  Judge  of  man,  who  was  about  to  pronounce  his  sentence,  that  he 
never  proposed  any  thing  but  for  the  good  of  religion  and  the  state." — 
lyisraeli's  Curios,  of  Lit.  iii.  334.    Boston,  1833. 


iJOO  REVIEW  OP^  THE  PURITANS. 

never  to  bow  the  knee,  to  a  spiritual  Divinity.*  Admit  the 
sanction  of  sincerity,  and  you  are  an  editor  of  his  blasphe- 
mous resolve  to — as  far  as  in  him  lay — annihilate  the  wor- 
ship of  a  God.  Admit  it,  and  what  ampler  apology  would 
the  Governor  of  Plymouth  need  for  his  **  extreme  malice 
and  secret  venom,"  who,  says  Sevvel,  "  did  not  stick  to  say, 
that  in  his  conscience,  the  Quakers  were  such  a  people  that 
deserved  to  be  destroyed,  they,  their  wives  and  children, 
their  houses  and  lands,  without  pity  or  mercy. "t  Admit  it, 
and  Muretus,  who  eulogized  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholo- 
mew in  1572,  will  have  something  worthier  than  a  brazen 
front  to  fortify  him.  Charles  IX.  need  not  then  have  **  per- 
ished in  agony  and  horror,"  nor  Catherine  de  Medici,  pa- 
triae communis  Erinnys,  "died  full  of  years  and  iniquities, 
unhonored  and  unmourned."j: 

There  probably  never  were  sincertr  devotees,  than  the 
professors  of  two  apparently  most  opposite  creeds ;  one  of 
whom  brought  Servetus  §  to  the  stake,  and  the  other  dagger- 
ed Henry  IV.  of  France. 

And  then,  after  all,  what  makes  Mr.  Knowles' plea  the 
more  mal-apropos,  it  is  as  stale  as  it  is  unserviceable.  It  is 
the  very  plea  of  the  Puritans  themselves,  which  South  ridi- 
culed nearly  two  hundred  years  ago ;  and  he  never  would  have 
ridiculed  that  which  his  hearers  did  not  know  as  familiarly 
as  he  himself  did.  I  may  be  pardoned,  therefore,  for  quoting 
South,  and  bringing  this  part  of  my  subject  to  a  close.  "But 
still  conscience,  conscience,  is  pleaded  as  a  covering  for  all 
enormities,  an  answer  to  all  questions  and  accusations.  Ask 
them  what  made  them  fight  against,  imprison,  and  murder 

*  See  S.  D.  Parker's  argument  at  Kneeland's  trial  in  Boston.  It  is 
valuable  both  for  its  reasoning  and  its  authorities.  Mr.  P.  is  a  son  of  the 
late  Bishop  Parker. 

t  Hist.  Quakers,  p.  224.  X  British  Critic,  xvii.  73. 

§  It  is  amusing  to  see  Mr.  Benedict  claiming  this  heretic  as  a  Baptist ; 
and  also  finding  plenty  of  Baptists  among  the  Socinians  of  Poland  ! — His- 
tory, i.  179,  180,  18G. 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS.  301 

their  lawful  sovereign  ?  Why,  conscience.  What  made  them 
extirpate  the  government,  and  pocket  the  revenue  of  the 
Church?  Conscience.  What  made  them  perjure  themselves 
with  contrary  oaths  1  what  makes  swearing  a  sin,  and  for- 
swearing to  be  none?  what  made  them  lay  hold  on  God's 
promises  and  break  their  own  ?  Conscience.  What  made 
them  sequester,  persecute,  and  undo  their  brethren,  rape  their 
estates,  ruin  their  families,  get  into  their  places,  and  then 
say  they  only  robb?d  the  Egyptians?  Why,  still,  this  large 
capacious  thing,  their  conscience."*  And  to  carry  out  the  que- 
ries, with  reference  to  New  England  and  the  Baptists,  upon 
the  authority  of  Mr.  Benedict — What  made  them  fasten  their 
eyes  so  eagerly  upon  "  the  goods  of  dissenters,"  and  so  in- 
flexibly rigorous  ''  in  enforcing  their  taxing  laws,"  that  they 
could  demand  eightpence  from  a  poor  female,  for  the  sup- 
port of  a  minister  whose  doctrine  she  did  not  acknowledge, 
and  let  her  languish  in  prison  ''  almost  a  year"  because  she 
refused  payment  ?f  And  I  suppose  the  answer  must  be,  as 
ready  and  as  effectual  as  ever,  "  Conscience." 

Messrs.  Choules  and  Knowles,  I  commend  this  answer  to 
your  choicest  meditations.  **  Were  these  excellent  men  now 
alive,  they  would  be  foremost"  in  resorting  to  your  patron- 
age, in  vindication  of  their  persecutionsof  your  own  ecclesi- 
astical forefathers,  and  would  take  shelter  behind  your  names 
as  the  agis  of  their  protection. | 

*  South's  Sermons,  Oxford,  1823,  iii.439. 

t  Benedict's  Baptists,  i.  269,  270. 

t  In  these  remarks  about  sincerity,  I  am  by  no  means  aiming  at 
Messrs.  C.  and  K.  personally,  but  at  the  Puritan  doctrine  concerning 
the  sufficiency  of  sincerity.  This  is  an  old  notion,  and  was  rebuked, 
nor  by  South  only,  but  others  ;  e.  g.  by  W.  Parker,  in  his  examination 
of  the  Confession  of  the  Westminster  Assembly,  which  he  published  in 
1651.  Thus,  on  p.  195,  Parker  says,  "  Whereas  you  imply, '  That  bare 
sincerity  will  carry  out  the  Saints,  though  they  remain  imperfect  in  their 
obedience,  all  their  life  long  ;'  it  is  a  great  mistake,  for  the  Lord  requires 
growth  answerable  unto  the  grace,  means,  and  space  offered  unto  men, 

14 


302  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

I  will  close  this  letter  with  an  important  historical  correc- 
tion, which,  as  it  can  be  made  more  easily  by  a  reference  to 
Baptist  authorities  than  any  others,  may  as  well  be  inserted 
here  as  any  where. 

Mr.  Robert  Walsh,  Jr.,  in  his  "Appeal  from  the  judgments 
of  Great  Britain,"  is  so  over-anxious  to  make  out  a  strong 
case  for  his  countrymen,  on  every  count  of  the  indictment, 
that  he  suffers  the  treatment  of  his  Popish  brethren  by  the 
Puritans  to  escape  with  "  few  stripes,"  and  says  expressly  : 
"  The  religious  ferment  subsided  in  New  England  before  the 
expiration  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Not  an  instance  is  to 
be  found,  in  her  subsequent  history,  of  sanguinary  or  vexa- 
tious persecution  for  variations  in  opinion  or  worship."* 

Now  Mr.  Brougham,  the  present  Lord  Brougham,  had  said 
in  his ''  Colonial  Policy,"  as  quoted  by  Mr.  Walsh,  that  "  long 
after  the  mother  country  had  relinquished  forever  the  acts 
of  persecution,  they  found  votaries  in  the  constituted  authori- 
ties of  the  Colonies,  and  the  Northern  States,  at  the  end  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  afforded  the  disgraceful  example  of  that 
spiritual  tyranny,  from  which  their  territories  had  originally 
served  as  an  asylum."  This  Mr.  W.  endeavors  indignantly 
to  rebut  ;  with  how  much  success,  the  historian  of  the  Bap- 
tists can  answer  more  expressively,  perhaps,  than  any  other 
person,  though  Churchmen,  Quakers,  &c.,  might  all  have 
something  to  contribute  towards  the  emphasis  of  his  reply. 

even  of  them  who  are  sincere  already." — This  authority  will  satisfy  all 
who  think  Dr.  South  may  be  prejudiced  about  the  matter. 

And,  now,  I  will  but  add,  that  the  intelligent  theologian  will  perceive, 
in  a  moment,  the  school  from  which  such  a  doctrine  as  the  sufficiency  of 
sincerity  has  come.  It  is  the  Romish  Church  which  teaches,  that  devotion 
to  the  true  faith,  and  enmity  to  heresy,  make  up  for  many  obliquities  of 
life.  So  devotion  to  Puritanism  coudl  compound  for  many  a  failure  in 
other  respects. 

»  Part  I.  p.  51.— It  wUl  be  seen,  by  and  by,  that  in  Massachusetts, 
in  1700,  a  law  with  the  penalty  of  death  was  passed  against  Romish 
priests. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  ^03 

Mr.  Walsh's  position  is,  that  New  England  never  saw  even  a 
"  vexatious  persecution"  after  A.  D.  1700.  "  Many,"  says  Mr. 
Benedict,  *'  were  the  oppressions  and  privations  which  our 
brethren  suffered  in  this  boasted  asylum  of  liberty,  until  the 
American  war.'^*  It  is  a  fact  that  I  can  find  no  act "  to  exempt 
persons  commonly  called  Anabaptists  within  this  province, 
(Massachusetts)  from  being  taxed  for  and  toward  the  support 
of  [Puritan]  ministers,"  till  the  year  1728.  And  then  it  is 
found  among  the  "  Temporary  acts,"  and  special  care  is  taken 
to  let  it  last  but  a  few  years, t  even  at  that  late  day.  j  True,  the 
act  was  revived,  but  always  with  a  proviso  making  it  tempo- 
rary, and  showing  that  the  Puritans  never  would,  and  never 
did  give  their  cqpfidence  to  the  Baptists,  to  the  latest  moment 
of  their  colonial  existence. 

And  how  was  it  afterwards,  when  full  liberty  had  blessed 
themselves,  and  when  they  might  be  supposed  well  inclined 
to  bestow  it  on  others,  without  any  bitter  mixture  ?  "  The 
Baptists,  with  Mr.  Backus  at  their  head,  preferred  a  peti- 
tion to  the  Legislature,  praying  '  That  ministers  should,  in 
future  [Mr.  B.'s  own  italics]  be  supported  by  Christ's  au- 

*  Benedict's  Baptists,  i.  381. — In  1722,  the  citizens  of  Providence, 
R.  I.,  replied  thus  to  the  Puritan  ministers  of  Massachusetts,  who  had  tried 
to  wheedle  them  into  an  amnesty.  "  At  this  very  present,  you  are  rend- 
ing towns  in  pieces,  ruining  the  people  with  innumerable  charges,  which 
make  them  decline  your  ministry,  and  fly  for  refuge  to  the  Church  of 
England,  and  others  to  dissenters  of  all  denominations,  while  you  like 
wolves  pursue  ;  and  whenever  you  find  them  within  your  reach,  you  seize 
upon  their  estates." — Quoted  in  Benedict's  Baptists,  i,  470. 

Here  is  most  important  testimony,  from  those  out  of  Massachusetts, 
that  in  the  early  part  of  the  last  century,  the  Church  of  England  was  a 
city  of  refuge  to  those  who  fled  from  Puritan  oppressions  within  the  Bay 
State. 

t  Seven,  perhaps,  like  the  act  of  1740.  Mr.  Felt  in  his  Salem,  p. 
386,  does  not  say  ;  and  I  have  not  the  "  Temporary  Acts  "  up  to  1728. 

t  Temporary  Acts,  folio,  Boston,  1742,  pp.  21,  248  ;  and  for  the 
year  1757.  See  Benedict,  i.  443,  444.  Imprisonments,  &c.,  happened 
notwithstanding. 


804 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 


thority,  and  not  at  all  by  assessment  and  secular  force.' 
And  had  statesmen  been  let  alone  in  their  discussions,  it  is 
highly  probiible  that  this  petition  would  have  been  regarded  ; 
but  the  clergy,  poor  men,"  (who  can  help  thinking  of  the 
days  of  Master  Cotton  ?)  "  were  afraid  to  be  left  on  this  pre- 
carious ground  ;  they  therefore  put  forth  their  cries,  legisla- 
tors heard  them,  pitied  their  dangerous  condition,  and  dis- 
graced the  State  Constitution  with  an  article  to  regulate 
religious  worship,  and  so  on."* 

And  no  wonder  ;  for  the  antipathies  of  Massachusetts 
were  as  iron-bound  as  its  coasts.  They  never  relaxed. f 
Roger  Williams  never  was  forgiven  ;t  the  colony  of  Rhode 
Island,  though  it  would  gladly  have  joined  tj^  old  Confeder- 
acy, was  excluded  by  Massachusetts,  as  Dr.  Morse  intelli- 
gently says,  "  for  particular  reasons  ;"§  and  for  like  "  par- 
ticular reasons,"  the  Baptists  were  harassed,  in  one  way  or 
another,  till  1834,  when  the  walls  of  partition  were  at  last 
laid  low,  and  the  soil  of  Massachusetts,  after  two  centuries 
of  hampering,  was  made  as  religiously  free  as  the  banished 
Williams  desired  to  make  it  in  the  year  I635.|| 

One  word  as  to  the  correctness  of  Mr.  Brougham,  on 
other  authorities  than  my  own,  and  this  letter  shall  end.  Mr. 
Charles  Purdon  Cooper,  in  his  speech  for  the  Unitarians,  in 
the  case  respecting  Lady  Hewley's  foundations,  tells  us  that 
the  last  victims  of  the  act  de  heretico  comburcndo,  suffered 
in  1611.^  One  of  them,  Edward  Wightman,  the  last  of 
English  sufferers  at  the  stake,  Mr.  Benedict  insists  on 
claiming  as  a  Baptist;  though  he  admits  that  he  was  ac- 
cused of  almost  every  "  heretical  ism,  that  ever  infected  the 


*  Benedict's  Baptists,  i.  381. 

t  Gough  gives  instances  of  violent   Quaker  persecution,  requiring 
royal  interference,  in  1705  and  1724.— Goughs  Quakers,  iv.  56,  219. 
\  Knowles's  Williams,  p.  79.  §  Geog.  1792,  p.  158. 

II  There  was  partial  relief  for  Baptists,  &c.,in  1811. — Benedict,  i.  449. 
IT  Speech,  2d  edit.  p.  35. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  305 

Christian  world,"  and  Fuller  declares  that  ten  were  named 
in  his  indictment.*  But  be  this  as  it  may,  it  was  about 
half  a  century  after  this,  that  the  last  victims  of  Puritanism 
suffered  death  ;  (much  more,  if  we  go  into  the  history  of 
witchcraft,  which  I  am  willing  to  pass  by  :t)  and  its  san- 
guinary executions  were  finally  suspended,  only  through  fear 
of  Mr.  Greenwood's  '*  profligate  tyrant,"  the  second  Charles. 
Tyre  and  Sidon^ad  a  great  wliile  ago  repented,,  sitting  in 
sackcloth  and  ashes;  but  the  children  of  the  covenant  still 
held  to  the  doctrine  of  coercive  power  "  as  the  matter  shall 
require." 

Says  Mr.  Bozman,  in  his  esteemed  history  of  Maryland, 
(p.  197,)  and  after  instancing  some  of  the  severities  of  the 
English  government,  "  But  it  will  surprise  the  reader,  at 
this  day,  after  reading  these  severe  denunciations  against 
the  Puritans,  unjustifiable  indeed  upon  any  other  principle 
than  self-preservation,  and  after  a  minute  search  through  the 
pages  of  the  best  historians  of  those  times,  when  he  finds 
considerable  difficulty  in  discovering  one  solitary  in- 
stance where  a  Puritan  was  either  burnt  as  a  heretic,  or 
hung  as  a  felon  for  his  religion."!  Alonzo  Lewis,  in  his 
laborious  history  of  Lynn,  has  in  one  short  and  quiet  sen- 
tence well  expressed  the  nature  of  the  persecutions,  suffered 
by  Puritan  ministers  from  the  Church  of  England.  They 
were  not  permitted,  he  says,  to  perform  her  services.^  That 
is,  they  would  have  performed  services  for  her,  in  their  way. 
She  chose  another,  and   her  own,  and  excluded  them :  and 

*  Benedict's  Baptists,  i.  196.     Fuller's  Ch.  Hist.  iii.  255. 

t  I  beg  that  this  may  be  noted.     Walsh,  in  his  Appeal,  p.  52,  concedes  r 
the  story  of  the  witches,  as  the  worst  part  of  New  England  histoiy.     But 
I  let  it  all  go.     Surely  if  I  were  actuated  by  an  aggressive  spirit,  I  would 
not  do  so. 

t  Gough,  in  his  Quakers,  i.  374,  note,  says  that  "  England  did  not 
banish  or  hang  any  of  their  preachers."  He  could  not  say  as  much  for 
New  England  towards  his  own  sect. 

§  Lewis's  Lynn,  p.  54. 


306  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

this  was  persecution  !  It  was,  however,  as  its  own  charac- 
ter obviously  implies,  an  act  of  self-preservation  :  a  princi- 
ple, which,  as  Mr.  Bancroft  intimates,  can  justify  severity. 
That  the  principle  of  self-preservation  was  the  one  which 
animated  and  can  sanction  the  "excesses,"  as  he  styles 
them,  of  the  Puritans,  is  the  argument  of  Mr.  Bancroft. 
"  The  people,"  is  his  claim,  "  did  not  attempt  to  convert 
others,  but  to  protect  themselves."*  That  the  same  princi- 
ple pervaded  the  Church  of  England,  and  can  be  its  apology 
with  no  less  effect,  is  what  I  affirm  with  the  most  solid  con- 
fidence ;  and  with  due  thanks  to  Mr.  B.,  for  an  argument 
which  resembles  some  of  his  brother  politicians,  and  is,  in 
their  favorite  phrase,  available. 


I 


LETTER  XV. 


My  last  letter  was  devoted  to  the  relations  between  Pu- 
ritans and  the  Baptists,  and  was  designed  to  show  that  their 
exclusiveness  was  inflicted  upon  them,  as  effectually  as  upon 
Churchmen,  or  even  more  so.  The  same  design  will  be 
pursued  in  this,  with  a  simple  change  of  subject.  I  would 
now  introduce  my  readers  to  the  bearings  of  Puritanism  to- 
wards those,  whom  almost  every  body  calls  Quakers  ;  though 
an  author  I  shall  have  frequent  occasion  to  quote  calls  this 
a  "  nickname,"  "  which  the  Independents  [that  is  Congre- 
gationalists]  had^rs^  given  to  the  professors  of  the  light. "t 

I  shall  of  course,  limited  by  my  plan,  be  unable  to  give 
a  full  picture  of  some  scenes  in  Quaker  history,  which  ought 
to  be  known  to  multitudes,  who  are  utterly  unacquainted 
with  them  ;   and  which  can  be   appreciated  by  at  least  one 

*  Bancroft,  i.  463.  t  Sewel's  History,  p.  99. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  307 

well-drawn  example,  as  they  could  not  be  by  bare  references, 
however  elaborate.  My  Jirst  object,  accordingly,  will  be  to 
present  a  condensed  statement  of  the  sufferings  of  this  out- 
raged sect,  under  the  discipline  of  those,  who  are  supposed 
to  have  made  the  most  celebrated  missionary  expedition  in 
all  history,  for  the  enjoyment  and  promotion  of  religious 
freedom.  ''It  is  the  best  people — the  most  pious  and  ex 
emplary  alwai/s,"  s^ys  a  Puritan  author,  ''  and  commonly 
not  the  least  intelligent  and  respectable,  that  persecution 
banishes  from  its  communion,  while  it  retains  the  worst."* 
Under  the  ban  of  this  high  authority,  the  Baptists,  whose 
case  has  been  considered  already,  might  take  comfortable 
shelter,  when  they  survey  New  England  in  the  light  of  the 
past.  To  the  Quakers,  it  must  be  a  precious  boon  :  for  it 
will  prove  them,  ere  this  letter  is  done,  to  have  been  the  elite 
of  early  New  England  society. 

After  giving  the  promised  statement,  I  shall  then  rely 
principally  for  what  remains,  upon  the  Quaker  historian 
Sewel,  and  let  him  speak  very  much  for  himself.  The  edi- 
tion of  Sewel' s  book  I  shall  make  use  of,  is  the  folio  one 
printed  at  London  in  1722 ;  which  is  said  upon  its  title- 
page  to  have  been  written,  at  first,  in  Low  Dutch,  and  trans- 
lated into  English  by  the  author.  This,  of  course,  has  all 
the  authenticity  of  a  work  written  directly  in  English,  and 
is  said,  by  the  Biographie  Universelle,t  to  be  esteemed  [for 
its  exactitude  and  fidelity.  How  far  this  book  is  known  in 
this  country,  I  am  unable  to  say.  I  believe,  though  I  am 
not  certain,  that  an  edition  or  an  abridgment  of  it  has  been 
published  ;  but  to  most  persons,  not  belonging  to  the  Qua- 
ker Society,  I  suppose  it  to  be  a  novelty,  and  may  therefore 
quote  it  more  extensively  than  would  otherwise  be  proper. 

To  proceed  now  with  the  statement  which  was  my  first 
object,  I  may  say  that  I  have  been  at  some  pains  to  gather 

*  Mitchell's  Ch.  Member,  p.  16.  +  Tom.xlii.  193,  194. 


308  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

and  arrange,  from  the  writings  of  Hutchinson,  from  the  an- 
cient Colony  Laws  of  both  Massachusetts  and  Plymouth, 
from  Hazard's  Collection  of  Papers,  and  from  other  sources, 
the  various  titles  bestowed  by  the  Puritans  on  the  Quakers, 
and  the  sundry  characteristics  ascribed  to  their  opinions, 
habits,  and  sectarism.  The  conclusion  to  which  this  labor 
has  brouorht  me  is,  that  while  the  Puritans  were  never  much 
addicted  to  what  Jeremy  Taylor  calls  "  cool  aijd  tame  hom- 
ilies"* upon  those  who  differed  from  them,  the  poor  Quakers 
received  a  Benjamin's  mess  of  such  scourges,  as  can  be  ap- 
plied by  a  member  proverbially  unruly.  The  titles  and 
characteristics  in  question  shall  be  exhibited,  with  pretty 
thorough  proof  that  Puritan  appellatives  were  never  empty 
air,  but  were  sustained  and  accredited  in  such  a  particular 
and  emphatic  manner  as  to  prove  them  sincere,  to  the  fullest 
measure  of  Professor  Knowles's  charity. 

To  begin.  The  opinions  of  the  Quakers  were  pronounced 
"  dangerous,"  "  horrid,"  *'  hateful,"  *'  blasphemous,"  "  devil- 
ish," "  diabolical,"  and  "  damnable" — nay,  "a  stinking  vapor 
from  hell."  As  to  their  practices,  they  were  condemned  as 
"  absurd  and  destructive ;"  and  for  their  adherence  to  them 
they  were  proscribed  as  *'  impetuous  altempters,"  "  arrogant 
and  bold  intruders,"  "  proselyters,"  "  open  seducers,"  '*  evil 
speakers  of  dignities,"  *'  revilers  of  magistrates  and  minis- 
ters," ''  despisers  and  overthrowers  oi  the  order  of  Godi  in 
Church  and  Commonwealth,"  "open  and  capital  blasphem- 
ers." When  spoken  of  collectively  as  a  5ec^,  the  Quakers 
were  called,  and  even  in  the  most  solemn  and  deliberate  pub- 
lications of  the  Government,  (of  the  publications  of  the  Pulpit 
a  reader  can  easily  guess  from  such  specimens,)  "  ranters," 

*  Pref.  Lib.  of  Prophesying. 

t  The  Puritans  believed,  it  seems,  in  the  Divine  right  of  their  own 
church  order,  and  civil  government  also.  With  what  grace  could  they 
complain  of  the  most  ultra  Tory,  who  believed  in  the  Divine  right  of  /lis 
Church  and  State  ?     Turpe  est  doctori,  cum  culpa  redarguit  ipsum. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  3(39 

''rogues  and  vagabonds,"  "pernicious,  blasphemous,  cursed 
heretics."  The  repetition  of  the  word  "  cursed"  is  perfectly 
frightful.  "  Cursed  Quakers"  seems  to  have  been  almost  or 
quite  a  set  phrase,  or  a  statutory  formula,  like  the  execrations 
of  the  council  of  Trent.  As  to  the  treatment  of  these  unfor- 
tunate people,  a  Puritan  bark  was  never  worse  than  a  Puritan 
bite.  Endicott  and  his  satellites  were  not  the  men  to  say,  with- 
out meaning,  "  Take  heed  ye  break  not  our  ecclesiastical  laws, 
for  then  ye  are  sure  to  stretch  by  a  halter."*  This  was  said, 
to  be  sure,  before  there  was  actual  law  to  sustain  it.  But  it 
was  said  by  one  who  had  what  a  statesman  called  the  "  prophe- 
tic eye  of  taste  ;"  who  knew  what  his  people  would  bear,  nay 
choose,  and  who  spoke  therefore  as  pythily  as  a  priestess  of 
Apollo.  He  saw  the  end  from  the  beginning,  and  he  gave 
the  first  Quakers  who  defiled  Puritan  soil,  a  surety  which 
was  redeemed  to  the  letter.  Massachusetts  became  a  per- 
fect Quaker  Purgatory.  It  was  warm  enough  at  the  outset ; 
but  finally  resembled  Nebuchadnezzar's  furnace,  in  being 
"one  seven  times  hotter,"  till,  save  for  royal  interposition,  i 
might  have  proceeded  to  untold  excesses,  and  with  the  insa- 
tiate wrath  of  Romanism  against  Wickliff,t  burned  a  dead 
Quaker's  bones.  When  the  Quakers  were  first  rumored  of, 
they  proclaimed  a  fast;j:  but  when  that  would  not  do,  they 
followed  the  example  of  Juno ;  Flectere  si  Jiequeo  superos, 
Acheronta  movcho.^ 

But  to  come  to  actual,  rather  than  possible,  facts.  The 
Quakers  were  compelled  to  attend  on  the  services  of  the 
Puritan  preachers ;  and  when  they  assembled  by  them- 
selves, though  never  so  privately,  their  doors  might  be  broken 
open :  a  thing,  which,  as  was  before,  remarked.  Lord 
Chatham  did  not  hesitate  to  say,  in  the  face  of  all  Par- 
liament,   the  King   could    not  do   and  dare    not.      This, 

*  Sewel,  p.  160.     And  compare  Gough,  i.  369. 

t  L'Enfant's  Cone.  Const,  i.  216. 

X  See  Felt's  Salem,  pp.  192,  193.  §  Aueid  vii.  312. 

14* 


310  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

however,  was  lawful  in  New  England,  when  any  one  set 
up — as  Mr.  Adams  tells  us  Roger  Williams  did — a  conven- 
ticle !  A  conventicle  on  Puritan  soil — Oh  Milton,  with  all 
the  machinery  of  the  Paradise  Lost,  could  you  have  described 
the  phenomenon  !  But  I  shall  be  more  lost  myself  in  con- 
sidering it,  if  I  pause  here,  than  a  stranger  would  be  in  con- 
templating Westminster  Abbey — so  let  me  hasten  away. 
The  Quakers  could  be  apprehended  without  warrant,  tried 
without  jury,  fined  without  mercy,  incarcerated  without  bail 
at  the  pleasure  of  their  tormentors,  and  "  be  kept  at  work 
and  not  suffered  to  speak."*  They  could  be  put  in  stocks 
and  in  cages,  and  exposed  to  scorn,  hooting,  and  filthy  mis- 
siles :  this  last  punishment  being  one  of  those  ingenious  cru- 
elties in  which  I  never  knew  Puritans  equalled,  but  by  such 
monstrous  oppressors  of  human  rights,  and  fiendlike  sporters 
with  human  comfort  as  Tamerlane,  and  Louis  XL  of  France. 
Their  disposal  of  property  was  rendered  null,  because  they 
could  not  conscientiously  verify  by  oath  a  last  will  and  tes- 
tament, nor  have  their  own  signatures  proved  by  the  oaths 
of  others. t  They  could,  for  pertinacity  in  ihe  maintenance 
of  their  sentiments,  and  continued  dishonor  to  Puritan  wor- 
ship by  absence  from  it,  be  stripped  naked  to  the  waist, 
(women  as  well  as  men,)t  and  be  stretched,  rack-wise,  upon 
the  wheels  of  a  great  gun  ;  or  tied  to  a  cart's  tail,  be  dragged 
through  a  town's  most  public  streets,  and  from  town  to  town, 
till  marched  out  of  the   Commonwealth,    and  be  "  severely 


*  Felt's  Salem,  p.  193.  The  Puritans  were  ver}' systematic.  Neal 
says  the  Quakers  were  to  be  whipped  tvcice  a  tccek,  until  they  went  to 
work.  The  first  time  five  stripes  to  be  put  on  additional,  and  each  time 
after,  three  more. — New  England  i.  303. 

t  Felt's  Salem,  p.  237. 

t  Children,  also,  for  a  parent's  sake. — Sewel,p.  338.  Patience  Scott, 
only  eleven  years  of  age,  is  put  in  prison  ;  and  her  mother  whipped  ten 
lashes,  for  yearning  with  maternal  compassion  over  her  hapless  child. 
—Hutch.  Hist.  i.  pp.  183,  184. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  3)  1 

whipped,"  or,  as  one  of  them  expressed  it,  "  slashed  "*  as 
they  went  along.  Gough  (ii.  36,  37,)  has  preserved  an  ac- 
tual warrant,  directing  three  women  to  be  whipped  through 
eleven  towns ;  which  would  have  been  a  distance  of  eighty 
miles !  And  this  warrant,  too,  was  subsequent^to  the  man- 
damus of  King  Charles,  and  when,  as  an  act  of  mercy,  they 
had  restricted  the  punishment  of  being  whipped  from  town 
to  town,  to  the  number  of  three  towns,  i.  e.,  they  would  drive 
their  wretched  fellow-creatures  through  three  towns  and  not 
eleven,  and  for  twenty  [miles,  perhaps,  instead  of  eighty^! 
And  this  was  progressive  charity  !  But  I  shall  forget  my 
climax  in  this  awful  schedule.  They  could  be  turned  out 
at  dead  of  night  amid  frost  and  snow ;  or  driven  into  a  howl- 
ing wilderness  ''  among  wolves  and  bears."  They  could 
be  branded  R,  (rogue)  and  H.  (heretic  ;)t  their  ears  could 
be  cropped,  and  their  tongues  bored  through,  or  "  thorow,"| 
as  the  old  statute  expressed  it.  They  could  be  sold  as 
slaves. §  They  could  be  banished,  and  finally  hung  and  left 
unburied,  for  noisome  birds  or  ravenous  beasts. 

And  to  all  this  the  Puritans  could  be  provoked,  by  the  min- 
isters of  their  religion — by,  for  example,  one  who  for  piety 
and  learning  might  be  supposed  the  foremost,  the  President  of 
Harvard  University.  "  Suppose,"  said  Charles  Chauncy  in 
a  sermon,  when  they  had  six  Quakers  in  prison,  and  were 
deliberating  on  their  fate,  "  Suppose  ye  should  catch  six 
wolves  in  a  trap,  and  ye  cannot  prove  that  they  killed  either 
sheep  or  lambs ;  and  now  you  have  them  they  will  neither 
bark  nor  bite,  yet  they  have  the  plain  mark  of  wolves.  Now 
I  leave  it  to  your  consideration,  whether  you  will  let  them 
go  alive,  yea  or   nay."||     Such  logic  from  the  pulpit  was 

*  Gough,  ii.  41.  t  Sewel,  p.  224.    Anc.  Col.  Laws,  p.  125. 

X  See  note  98,  for  the  word  "  thorow." 
§  Neal  records  this  frightful  fact.~N.  Eng.  i.  303,  304. 
II  Gough's  History,  i.  365.     The  punning  on  yea  or  nay  is  shocking. 
President  Chauncey's  manuscripts  were  used  up  by  a  pie-maker,  to  keep 


3i2  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

the  major  of  a  syllogism,  of  which  the  minor  proposition 
was  the  magistrate,  and  the  conclusion  the  gallows.*  And 
that  conclusion  was  so  agreeable,  that  they  did  not  soon 
grow  weary  of  it.  No,  when  some  of  the  Quakers  declared 
that  they  were  willing  to  die  for  their  opinions,  what  was  En- 
dicott's  brutal  answer  ?  "  We  shall  be  as  ready  to  take  away 
your  lives,  as  you  shall  be  to  lay  them  down."  And  what 
the  exclamation  of  one  of  his  myrmidons,  when  the  Quakers 
had  been  harassed  for  years,  and  as  many  of  them  de- 
stroyed as  could  be,  while  a  fresh  arrest  presented  a  prospect 
of  renewed  severity?  He  declared  it  "  his  delight,  and  he 
could  rejoice  in  following  the  Quakers  to  execution  as  much 
as  ever."f 

In  view  of  a  law  which  sanctioned  such  unquenchable 
thirst  for  heretical  blood,  well  can  one  say  with  old  Sewel, 
when  he  had  just  been  reciting  it,  **  Here  endeth  this  san- 
guinary act,  being  more  like  to  the  decrees  of  the  Spanish 
Inquisition,  than  to  the  laws  of  a  reformed  Christian  mag- 
istracy ;  consisting  of  such  who  themselves,  to  shun  perse- 
cution, (which  was  but  a  small  fine  for  not  frequenting 
the  public  worship,)  had  left  old  England. "|  Or,  with 
Gough,  whose  language  answers  even  more  effectually  the 
purposes  of  Churchmen,  "  Is  not  this  law  an  apology  for 
Laud  and  his  associates,  in  asserting  a  right  to  punish  men 
for  denying  established  fforms  ;  particularly  as  they  stopped 
short  of  the  extremities  to  which  these  precise  barbarians 
proceeded ;  they  neither  banished  nor  hanged  any  of  their 
preachers,  the  hardships  they  had  chiefly  to  complain  of  be- 

his  pies  from  scorching.  Perhaps  they  rendered  less  fuel  necessary.  Al- 
len's Biog.  Diet.  p.  250,  a. 

*  Well,  and  if  it  does,  the  President  is  blameless  ;  for  as  Master  Cot- 
ton says,  if  you  do  counsel  magistrates  to  persecute,  it  does  not  argue  that 
you  are  responsible  for  their  acts. 

t  Gough,  i.  369,  and  ii.  39.     Compare  Sewel, p.  279. 

X  Sewel,  p.  200.     Hewatt's  S.  Carolina,  i.  34 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  313 

ing  a  deprivation  of  their  ecclesiastical  emoluments,  which 
the  Quakers  wanted  not  from  them?"* 

This  allusion  of  Sewel  to  the  Inquisition  reminds  me 
of  the  romantic  excursion  undertaken  by  some  females  of 
his  sect,  who  went  to  Malta,  and  holding  forth  too  freely 
were  imprisoned  for  a  long  time  in  the  cells  of  the  "  Holy 
Office."  There  they  were  pestered  by  the  monks,  equally 
enthusiastic  with  themselves,  and  who,  according  to  Leslie, 
have  the  same  parentage. t  One  of  these  monks  offered  to 
have  a  finger  cut  off,  if  they  would  turn  good  "  Catholics  ;" 
while  others,  wearied  with  their  inflexibility,  gave  them 
some  most  ungallant  scoldings.  Still  they  found  plenty  of 
time,  in  such  apparently  close  quarters,  to  darn  stockings 
and  mend  old  clothes.  They  were  finally  released  in  a  very 
courteous  manner. J 

With  this  passage  of  Quaker  romance,  I  am  constrained 
to  join  a  second  well-attested  one,  concerning  another  of 
their  heroines.  This  dauntless  Amazon,  after  having  dared 
to  confront  the  sour  visage  of  Puritanism  in  the  clime 
of  New  England,  grew  bold  enough  to  figure  among  ''pre- 
cise barbarians"  of  a  somewhat  different,  though  not  more 
exclusive  school.  She  even  ventured  among  the  Turks, 
and  aspired  to  the  honor  of  converting  the  grand  Soldan 
himself  This  was  Mahomet  IV.,  and  he  happened,  at  the 
moment  of  her  arrival  upon  Turkish  territory,  to  be  in 
a  place  not  the  most  propitious  for  a  lady,  under   any  cir- 

*  Gough,  i.  374,  note. 

t  Leslie's  Works,  fol.,  ii.  94?560,  561,  613,  or  iv.  190  ;  vi.  192,  new 
edit. — Barwick  on  the  Ch.  p.  xx. — Leslie  shows,  very  satisfactorily,  how 
Quakerism  and  many  other  isms  have  been  started  by  the  Jesuits,  to  aid  the 
cause  of  Popery  by  increasing  divisions  among  Protestants.  Douglass  in 
his  Summary  says,  truly  enough,  there  is  as  much  superstition  in  a  broad- 
brimmed  hat,  &,c.,  as  in  "  pontifical  accoutrements." — Vol.  i.  442,  note. 

t  Sewel,  pp.  293-312.     Gough,  ii.  51,  etc. 


314  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

cumstances — viz.  an  army's  camp.  Nevertheless,  how  mis- 
taken soever  her  views,  after  the  example  of  an  eminent 
saint  who  counted  not  his  life  dear  unto  himself,  "  She 
went  alone  to  the  camp,  and  got  somebody  to  go  to  the  tent 
of  the  Grand  Vizier  to  tell  him  that  an  English  woman  was 
come,  who  had  something  to  declare  from  the  great  God 
to  the  Sultan."  And,  chimerical  as  it  may  seem,  she  ob- 
tained the  audience  she  wished.  His  majesty  of  the  Sublime 
Porte  was  any  thing  but  offended.  "  She  was  brought  be- 
fore the  Sultan,  who  had  his  great  men  about  him,  in  such 
a  manner  as  he  was  used  to  admit  ambassadors."  And  the 
successor  of  the  Arabian  prophet  said  he  could  not  but  re- 
spect a  philanthropist,  who  would  come  so  far  on  such  a 
profoundly  kind  errand  ;  and  "  hearkened  to  her  with  much 
attention  and  gravity."  Nor  so  only,  but  when  "  she  asked 
him  '  Whether  he  understood  what  she  said  V  he  answered 
'  Yes,  every  word ;'  and  farther  said  '  that  what  she  had 
said  was  truth.'  "  And  then,  (no  doubt  like  the  Indian,  who 
when  he  formally  admitted  the  stories  of  his  missionary,  ex- 
pected the  same  courtesy  for  his  own,)  he  set  his  courtiers 
to  asking  questions,  and  was  not  a  little  curious  to  know  if 
her  ladyship  would  not  pay  a  compliment  or  two  to  Mahomet 
in  return.  Sewel  may  well  say  "she  answered  warily;" 
for  having  breathed  a  Massachusetts  atmosphere,  she  made 
what  a  New  Englander  would  call  such  a  *'  cute"*  reply,  that 
the  gentlemen  of  the  long  beard  were  quite  smitten,  allowed 
her  to  depart  without  the  least  "  hurt  or  scoff,"  and  even 
offered  her  the  protection  of  a  guard  ;  which  she  politely  de- 
clined, and  reached  Constantinojjle  in  perfect  safety. t  Nay, 
it  is  not  impossible  that  her  name  is  still  fragrant  there ;  for 
so  remarkable  an  incident  was  not  likely  to  be  neglected,  and 


*  See  N.  Bailey's  Dictionarium  Britannicum,  Folio  of  1730.     Bailey 
derives  it  from  the  Latin,  acutus. 

t  Sewel,  pp.  257,  258.     Gough,  i.  418. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  315 

who  can  tell  but  that  it  led  to  that  history  of  America, 
which  was  published  awhile  after  in  the  Turkish  language  !* 

Such  was  the  treatment  of  Quakers,  (not  in  any  better 
era  than  the  Quakers  lived  in,)  from  a  tribunal  of  which  it 
has  been  supposed  earth  never  saw  its  match  in  horrors  of 
cruelty,  and  from  the  disciples  of  one,  who  might  most  fitly 
be  styled  a  prophet  of  fire  and  the  sword.  When  I  contrast 
it  with  their  treatment,  standing  out  in  such  bold  relief 
from  the  rugged  and  bloody  history  of  New  England,  I  am 
compelled  to  say,  O  my  powers  of  comparison,  how  utterly 
are  ye  put  at  fault  by  nominal  Christians,  professed  exiles 
from  persecution,  and  detesters  of  its  wrongs,  claimants  of 
a  purer  name  and  principles  than  the  whole  world  else,  to 
whom  the  Inquisition  and  the  Turk  may  be  examples  of 
moderation  !t  I  wonder  not  that  honest  Sewel  should 
say,  the  heavens  grew  dark  and  the  sun  refused  to  shine 
upon  your  deeds. J  I  wonder  not  that  he  should  put  side 
by  side  with  your  conduct,  that  of  the  terrible  deceiver, 
Cromwell ;  who  said  he  had  rather  be  rolled  into  his  grave, 
and  buried  with  infamy,  than  overthrow  liberty  of  con- 
science— and  yet  suffered  persecution  to  go  on  !§ 

It  has  long  been  fashionable,  friend  reader,  for  Puritans 
to  be  most  bountiful  in  censure  of  all  system-mongers  but 
themselves,  "the  chosen  emissaries  of  God,"  "favorites 
with  heaven,"  and  "  blessed  beyond  all  mankind,  for  they 
were  the  depositaries  of  the  purest  truth."  Even  Mr.  Ban- 
croft can  discover  this  quality  in  their  composition,  any 
"  mists  "  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding ;  for  the  language 
just  quoted  is  from  one  of  his  own  descriptions.  ||  And 
especially  hath  it  been  their  custom  and  their  delight,  to 

*  Rich's  Bibliotheca  Americana,  vol.  ii.  43. 

t  See  Gough,  i.  421,  for  a  similar  reflection :  not  seen  however  till  I 
had  written  the  above.  So  it  appears  to  be  no  uncommon  reflection, 
how  severe  soever  Puritans  may  pronounce  it. 

X  Sewel,  p.  278.  §  Ibid.  p.  283.  ||  Bancroft,  1.  348. 


316  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

avish  these  censures  upon  a  Church,  partial  to  the  surplice, 
and  a  sign  of  that  Cross,  which  was  an  "offence"  to  imper- 
fect Christians,  but  to  mature  ones  a  "  glory."  (Gal.  v.  11, 
and  vi.  14.)  In  view  of  Puritanism's  ready,  if  not  sponta- 
neous anathemas  and  proscriptions — and  we  have  seen  how 
it  could  not  name  a  Quaker,  to  the  thousandth  time,  with- 
out the  habitual  "curse;"  whereas  the  Pope  would  have 
cursed  him  roundly  for  once^  and  have  done  with  him — how 
composedly  it  could  fancy  all  its  opponents  leagued  with 
and  prompted  by  the  powers  of  darkness,  and  accordingly 
blacken  and  blast  them  to  the  extent  of  their  diabolical 
merits — I  say,  in  view  of  its  ready,  if  not  spontaneous  ana- 
themas and  proscriptions,  may  it  not  pertinently  be  cau- 
tioned to  remember  the  warning  of  the  Son  of  Sirach,  that 
there  be  those,  who,  when  they  curse  Satan,  are  but  cursing 
their  own  souls.     (Ecclus.  xxi.  27.) 

The  warning  comes,  I  admit,  from  the  Apocrypha;  but 
if  the  Apocrypha  was  good  authority  for  a  Puritan  oath,  i^ 
is  also  good  authority  against  Puritan  denunciation.  And, 
moreover,  the  earlier  and  less  rabid  Puritans  always  treated 
the  Apocrypha  with  courtesy.  Even  old  Miles  Coverdale, 
who  would  not  wear  the  lawn,  honored  it  in  his  translation 
of  the  Scriptures.  "  Nevertheless,"  says  he  in  his  preface 
to  the  Apocryphal  Books,  "  I  have  not  gathered  them  to- 
gether to  the  intent  that  I  would  have  them  despised  or  little 
set  by,  or  that  I  should  think  them  false,  for  I  am  not  able 
to  prove  it."  I  may  be  pardoned  saying  thus  much  on  an 
incidental  matter ;  since  the  use  of  the  Apocrypha  was,  in 
a  Puritan  view,  a  crying  sin  of  the  Church  of  England,  and 
of  the  sternly  Calvinistic  Dutch.* 

I  will  here  suspend  further  remarks  of  my  own,  and 
introduce  some  extracts  from  Sewel ;  which,  if  the  doctrine 
of  the  rhetoricians  about  individuality  of  ideas  be  true,  will 

*  Sylloge  Confessionum  p.  329.  Constitution,  &.c.  Dutch  Church, 
N.York,  1815,  p.  15. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  3x7 

produce  a  deeper  impression  than  the  most  elaborate  discur- 
sive observations.  He  had  just  been  giving  an  account  of 
the  trial  and  condemnation  of  William  Robinson,  Marma- 
duke  Stephenson,  and  Mary  Dyar,  the  first  duaker  martyrs 
to  Puritanical  rigor.  On  his  231st  page,  he  opens  the  last 
act  of  the  dismal  tragedy. 

"  The  day  appointed  to  execute  the  bloody  sentence 
was  the  27th  of  October,*  when  in  the  afternoon,  [after  the 
LECTURE  was  ended  probably,  as  was  the  case  at  the  execu- 
tion of  William  Leddra !]  the  condemned  prisoners  were 
led  to  the  gallows  by  the  Marshal,  Michaelson,  and  Capt. 
James  Oliver,  with  a  band  of  about  two  hundred  armed 
men,  besides  many  horsemen,  as  if  they  were  afraid  that 
some  of  the  people  would  have  rescued  the  prisoners.  And 
that  no  actors  on  the  stage  might  be  wanting,  the  priest, 
Wilson,t  joined  to  the  company ;  who,  when  the  Court 
deliberated  how  to  deal  with  the  Quakers,  said,  '  Hang 
them,  or  else  '—drawing  his  finger  athwart  his  throat,  as  if 
he  would  have  said,  *  Dispatch  them  this  way.'  Now  the 
march  began,  and  a  drummer  going  next  before  the  con- 
demned, the  drums  were  beaten,  especially  when  any  of 
them  attempted  to  speak.  Glorious  signs  of  heavenly  joy 
and  gladness  were  beheld  in  the  countenances  of  these 
three  persons,  who  walked  hand  in  hand,  Mary  being  the 
middlemost ;  which  made  the  Marshal  say  to  her,  who  was 
pretty  aged  and  stricken  in  years,  '  Are  you  not  ashamed  to 
walk  thus  hand  in  hand  between  two  young  men  V  *  No,' 
replied  she,  *  this  is  to  me  an  hour  of  the  greatest  joy  I 
could  enjoy  in  this  world.  No  eye  can  see,  no  ear  can 
hear,  no  tongue  can  utter,  and  no  Heart  can  understand,  the 
sweet  incomes  or  influence,  and  the  refreshings  of  the  Spirit 
of  the  Lord  which  now  I  feel.'     Thus  going  along,  W.  Rob- 

*  A.  D.  1659. 

t  John  Wilson,  who  had  figured  at  the  ordination  of  Master  Cotton. 
Wilson  was  now  more  than  seventy  years  old  ! 


318  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

inson  said,  *  This  is  your  hour  and  the  power  of  darkness.' 
But  presently  the  drums  were  beaten ;  yet  shortly  after  leav- 
ing off,  Marmaduke  Stephenson  said,  *  This  is  the  day  of 
your  visitation,  wherein  the  Lord  hath  visited  you.'  More 
he  spoke,  but  could  not  be  understood  by  reason  of  the 
drums  being  beaten  again.  Yet  they  went  on  with  great 
cheerfulness,  as  going  to  an  everlasting  wedding-feast,  and 
rejoicing  that  the  Lord  had  counted  them  worthy  to  suffer 
death  for  his  Name's  sake.  When  they  were  come  near 
the  gallows,  the  priest  said  in  a  taunting  way  to  W.  Robin- 
son, '  Shall  such  Jacks  as  you  come  in  before  authority 
with  their  hats  on  V  To  which  Robinson  replied,  '  Mind 
you,  mind  you,  it  is  for  the  not  putting  off  the  hat  we  are 
put  to  death.' 

"  Now  being  come  to  the  ladder,  they  took  leave  of 
each  other  with  tender  embraces,  and  then  Robinson  went 
cheerfully  up  the  ladder,  and  being  got  up,  said  to  the 
people,  *  This  is  the  day  of  your  visitation,  wherein  the 
Lord  hath  visited  you  :  this  is  the  day  the  Lord  is  risen  in 
his  mighty  power,  to  be  avenged  on  all  his  adversaries.' 
He  also  signified,  that  '  he  suffered  not  as  an  evil  doer/ 
and  desired  the  spectators  '  to  mind  the  light  that  was  in 
them,'  to  wit,  the  light  of  Christ,  of  which  he  testified  and 
was  now  going  to  seal  it  with  his  blood.'  This  so  incensed 
the  envious  priest,  that  he  said,  '  Hold  thy  tongue,  be  silent, 
thou  art  going  to  die  with  a  lie  in  thy  mouth.'  The  rope 
being  now  about  his  neck,  the  executioner  bound*  his  hands 
and  legs,  and  tied  his  neckcloth  about  his  face.  Which 
being  done,  Robinson  said,  *  Now  ye  are  made  manifest ;' 
and  the  executioner  being  about  turning  him  off,  he  said, 
*  I  suffer  for  Christ  in  whom  I  live,  and  for  whom  I  die.' 

"  He  being  turned  off,  Marmaduke  Stephenson  stepped 
up  the  ladder,  and  said,  '  Be  it  known  unto  all  this  day, 
that  we  suffer  not  as  evil  doers,  but  for  conscience'  sake.' 
And  when  the  hangman  was  about  to  turn  him  off,  he  said, 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  319 

*  This  day  shall  we  be  at  rest  with  the  Lord.'  And  so  he 
was  turned  off. 

"  And  Mary  Dyar  seeing  now  her  companions  hanging 
dead  before  her,  also  stepped  up  the  ladder.  But  after  her 
coats  were  tied  about  her  feet,  the  halter  put  about  her  neck, 
and  her  face  covered  with  a  handkerchief,  which  the 
PRIEST  Wilson  lent  the  hangman,  just  as  she  was  to  be 
turned  off  a  cry  was  heard,  '  Stop  !  for  she  is  reprieved.' 
Her  feet  then  being  loosed,  they  bade  her  come  down.  But 
she,  whose  mind  was  already  as  it  were  in  heaven,  stood 
still  and  said,  '  She  was  there  willing  to  suffer  as  her  breth- 
ren did,  unless  they  would  annul  their  wicked  Imc'  Little 
heed  was  given  to  what  she  said  ;  but  they  pulled  her  down, 
and  the  Marshal  and  others  taking  her  by  the  arms,  carried 
her  to  prison  again.  That  she  thus  was  freed  of  the  gal- 
lows this  time,  [she  was  hung  eventually,]  was  at  the  inter- 
cession of  her  son  ;  to  whom  it  seems  they  could  not  then 
resolve  to  deny  that  favor."* 

Sewel  then  records  a  spirited  and  brave  rebuke  of  Mary 
Dyar,  written  the  next  day  to  the  Great  and  General  Court ; 
and  shows  that  the  magistrates  dreading  censure  for  the  in- 
quisitorial execution  of  Robinson  and  Stephenson,  sent  her 
away  to  Rhode  Island,  then  the  asylum  of  many  oppressed 
ones  from  the  "  enemies,  persecutors,  and  slanderers,"  in 
which  Puritan  territory  abounded. 

There  are  so  many  salient  angles,  as  an  engineer  would 
call  them,  in  Puritan  story,  that  I  beg  to  be  excused  for 
saying  that  this  allusion  to  Rhode  Island  brings  to  mind 
the  effort  of  Massachusetts,  to  make  that  famous  little  State 
a  "  partaker  in  other  men's  sins"  against  the  hapless  Qua- 
kers. But  it  was  without  any  success  whatever.  Roger 
Williams  and  William  Coddington,  (who  had  signed  the 
letter  from  the  Arbella,  and  adhered  to  its  catholic  temper, 

*  Hazard's  Coll.  ii.  566.   ^ 


320  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

till  Massachusetts  was  too  hot  for  him,*)  had  remembered 
St.  Paul's  counsel  to  Timothy,  just  alluded  to,  better  than 
the  boastful  Puritans  ;  some  of  whom  (like  Master  Cotton)t 
had  made  up  their  minds  on  every  text  of  the  Bible  !  These 
fathers  of  Rhode  Island  had  worthy  successors;  and  when 
a  letter  came  from  Boston  instigating  Quaker  persecution, 
it  received  an  answer  which  should  have  taught  a  little  wis- 
dom, if  it  did  not  provoke  a  little  shame.  After  declaring 
that  there  was  no  Rhode  Island  law  which  could  assist  Mas- 
sachusetts in  her  dilemma  of  sin  and  blood,  this  most  whole- 
some answer  goes  on  to  say,  "  And  we  moreover  find,  that 
in  those  places  where  these  people  aforesaid  are  most  of  all 
suffered  to  declare  themselves  freely,  and  are  only  opposed 
by  arguments  in  discourse,  there  they  least  of  all  desire  to 
come ;  and  we  are  informed  that  they  begin  to  loath  this 
place,  for  that  they  are  not  opposed  by  the  civil  authority. "J 
How  Massachusetts  profited  by  such  sagacious  hints,  given 
in  1657,  Sewel  has  already  told  us  ;  and  I  must  now  call 
upon  him  to  tell  further,  by  resuming  his  narrative  and 
comments  concerning  the  terrible  executions  of  1659.  On 
page  233,  he  thus  proceeds. 

"  Whilst  I  now  leave  her  at  home,  [Mary  Dyar  was  a 
mother  and  came  from  Rhode  Island  to  visit  her  children, ]§ 
1  am  to  say  that  one  John  Chamberlain,  an  inhabitant  of 
Boston,  having  seen  the  execution  of  W.  Robinson  and 
M.  Stephenson,  was  so  reached  by  their  pious  speeches,  that 
he  received  the  doctrine  of  the  truth,  for  which  they  died. 
But  his  visiting  those  in  prison  was  so  ill  resented,  that  af- 
terwards he  was  whipped  several  times,  severely ;  as  was 
also  Edward  Wharton,  an  inhabitant  of  Salem,  who  having 
said,  '  That  the  guilt  of  Robinson's  and  Stephenson's  blood 
was  so  great  and  heavy  that  he  was  not  able  to  bear  it,'  was, 

*  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  ser.  ix.  27.  t  Magnalia,  i.  249. 

\  Hazard's  Collection,  ii.  553.     Hutchinson's  Hist.  i.  454. 
§  Sewel,  p.  171. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  321 

for  this  his  pretended  sauciness,  whipped  with  twenty  lashes 
and  fined  twenty  pounds  ! 

*'  But  before  I  quite  leave  tlie  persons  that  were  hanged, 
T  must  say,  that  being  dead,  their  countenances  still  looked 
fresh,  for  the  terror  of  death  had  not  seized  them.  But  being 
cut  dowjiy  they  were  very  barbarously  used  ;  none  taking 
hold  of  their  bodies,  which  so  fell  down  on  the  ground,  that 
thereby  the  scull  of  W.  Robinson  was  broken.  And  even 
their  shirts  were  ripped  off  with  a  knife,  and  their  naked 
bodies  cast  into  a  hole,  which  was  digged,  without  any 
covering.*  And  when  some  of  their  friends  would  have  laid 
their  bodies   into   coffins,   it   was   denied  them.     Neither 

WOULD  THEY  SUFFER  THE  PLACE  WHERE  THE  BODIES  WERE 
CAST  TO  BE  FENCED  WITH  PALES,  LEST  RAVENOUS  BEASTS 

MIGHT  PREY  UPON  THEM."  "  And  pricst  Wilsou,"  he  adds 
a  little  below,  "  did  not  stick  to  make  a  ballad  on  the  exe- 
cuted."! 

Here  we  reach  the  climax,  and  here  Sewel's  unfaltering 
narrative  of  this  Puritan  Auto  da  Fe  closes.  In  view  of 
its  persistive  terrors,  I  feel  at  liberty  to  add,  that  as  I  have  no- 
ticed several  points  of  consanguinity  between  Puritanism  and 
Popery,  my  readers  may  here  recognize  another,  in  their 
posthumous  malevolence  towards  the  heretical  dead.  Popery 
will  not  give  the  dissenter  from  its  supremacy,  a  spot  to  lay 
his  bones  in  '4  it  can  even  disinter  him,  as  it  did  Wickliff, 
and  scatter  his  ashes  upon  running  waters,  as  Moses  did  the 
dust  of  Israel's  wretched  idol.  Puritanism  cannot  give  a 
dissenter  from  its  supremacy,  such  a  covering  as  the  blood- 

*  Puritanism  stript  its  enemies  clean.  A  Puritan  jailer  could  take 
the  beds  and  Bibles  of  imprisoned  Quakers  for  his  fees. — Sewel,  p.  160. 

t  This  is  quite  credible,  for  Mather  abused  their  dying  pangs  in 
prose.— Neal's  Ne%v  England,  i.  309,  310. 

X  Who  can  forget  Dr.  Young's  sad  plaint  over  his  Narcissa,  buried  in 
France  at  dead  of  night,  and  by  his  own  hands  ? — Night  Thoughts, 
N.  III. 


322  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

thirsty  Joab  gave  Absalom  the  traitor,  (2  Sam.  [xviii.  17,) 
but  leaves  him  for  the  prowling  dog  and  the  carrion  crow. 

Soon  after  the  incidents  above  related,  Sewel  completes 
his  detail  of  the  catastrophe  which  befell  Mary  Dyar,  in 
whom  the  frost  of  age  had  not  yet  chilled  the  glow  of  intre- 
pidity for  the  cause  of  charity  and  freedom.  She  was  carried 
to  the  Puritan  Golgotha,  with  a  band  of  soldiers  and  the 
drums  beaten  as  before,  to  prevent  sympathy  with  her 
speeches.  She  made  a  short  speech,  however,  at  the  foot  of 
the  scaffold,  declaring  that  she  came  to  keep  blood-guiltiness 
from  them,  and  desiring  them  to  repeal  their  unrighteous 
and  unjust  law  of  banishment  on  pain  of  death.  "Then," 
writes  Sewel,  (p.  234,)  "  priest  Wilson  said, '  Mary  Dyar,  O 
repent,  O  repent,  and  be  not  so  deluded,  and  carried  away 
by  the  deceit  of  the  devil.'     To  this,  Mary  Dyar  answered, 

*  Nay,  man,  I  am  not  now  to  repent.'  And  being  asked  by 
some,  *  Whether  she  would  have  the  Elders  pray  for  her,* 
she  said,  '  I  know  never  an  Elder  here.'  Being  further 
asked  '  Whether  she  would  have  any  of  the  people  to  pray 
for  her,'  she  answered,  *  She  desired  the  prayers  of  ^all  the 
people  of  God.'  Thereupon,  some  scoffingly  said,  *  It  may 
be  she  thinks  there  is  none  here.'     She,  looking  about,  said, 

*  I  know  BUT  FEw^  HERE.'     Then  they  spoke  to  her  again, 

*  That  one  of  the  Elders  might  pray  for  her.'  To  which 
she  replied,  •'  Nay,  first  a  child,  then  a  young  man,  then  a 
strong  man,  before  an  elder  in  Christ  Jesus.'  After  this 
she  was  charged  with  something  of  which  it  was  not  under- 
stood what  it  was,  but  she  seemed  to  hear  it,  for  she  said, 
'  It's  false,  it's  false — I  never  spoke  those  words.'  Then  one 
mentioned  that  she  should  have  said,  '  She  had  been  in 
Paradise.'  To  which  she  answered,  '  Yea,  I  have  been  in 
Paradise  several  days.'  And  more  she  spoke,  of  the  eternal 
happiness  into  which  she  was  now  to  enter.  In  this  well- 
disposed  condition  she  was  turned  off,  and  died  a  martyr  of 
Christ ;  being  twice  led  to  death,  which  the  first  time  she 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  333 

expected  with  undaunted  courage,  and  now  suffered  with 
Christian  fortitude.  Thus  this  honest,  valiant  woman 
finished  her  days  ;  but  so  hardened  were  these  persecutors, 
that  one  of  the  Court  said  scoffingly,  '  She  did  hang  as  a 
flag  for  others  to  take  example  by ;'  and  putting  to  death  ybr 
religion  did  not  yet  cease,  as  will  be  related  hereafter." 

Now  the  worst  revenge  I  have  ascertained  the  Q,uakers 
ever  took  for  this  pitiless  treatment  was,  to  call  the  subse- 
quent infatuation  of  the  Puritans  about  witchcraft  and  its 
fata]  consequences,  a  judicial  punishment  for  their  previous 
violence  against  themselves.*  But  the  advocates  of  the 
Puritans,  as  if  with  the  Romanists  they  would  not  allow 
death  itself  to  conquer  their  antipathies,  crucify  the  Quakers 
afresh,  by  defending  the  conduct  of  their  forefathers,  as 
prompted  and  justified  by  political  considerations.  Dr. 
Holmes  was  castigated  for  this  special  pleading  by  the  Quar- 
terly Review,  so  long  ago  as  1809  ;  yet  in  1829,  when  twenty 
years  after  he  published  a  second  edition  of  his  Annals,  he 
reiterated  the  very  sentences  which  the  Review  justly  con- 
demned.! He  thus  proved  himself  a  lineal  descendant  of 
those,  whom  Hooker  had  before  his  eyes,  and  whose  pertina- 
city he  found  never  flinched.  "  Nature  worketh  in  us  all," 
said  he,  willing  to  share  the  sin,  if  possibly  it  might  melt  them 
never  so  little,  ''  in  us  all,  a  love  to  our  own  counsels  :  the 
contradiction  of  others  is  a  fan  to  inflame  that  love.  Our 
love  set  on  fire  to  maintain  that  which  once  we  have  done, 
sharpeneth  the  wit  to  dispute,  to  argue,  and  by  all  means 
to  reason  for  it."| 

Mr.  Bancroft  comes  to  the  rescue  in  even  stronger  terms. 
The  people" — if  he  says  people  meaning  to  exclude  the 


«( 


*  "Wynne's  America,  i.  89. — In  some  of  the  Lambeth  manuscripts 
obtained  by  Dr.  Hawks,  I  find  it  stated,  as  a  curious  coincidence,  that  at 
this  time  the  wheat  of  Massachusetts  began  to  be  generally  blasted,  and 
its  pease  to  grow  wormy. 

t  Quart.  Rev.  ii.  316,  Am.  edit.     Holmes'  Annals,  i.  312,  2d  edit. 

X  Polity,  Pref.  Sect.  2,  or  Hanbury'a  edit.  i.  19. 


324  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

ministers  and  the  magistrates,  I  can  understand  him,  however 
disingenuous  the  evasion — "  The  people  did  not  attempt  to 
convert  others,  but  to  protect  themselves  ;  they  never  pun- 
ished opinion  as  such ;  they  never  attempted  to  torture  or 
terrify  men  into  orthodoxy."  While  Endicott,  the  Tiberius 
of  Massachusetts,  (licentiousness  of  course  excepted,)  has 
his  every  fault  gilded  by  a  phrase  of  classical  plausibility, 
"  benevolent  though  austere."*  Mr.  Bancroft  is  a  scholar, 
so  we  may  presume  that  by  this  phrase  he  means  '^  splendid 
bile  "  :  in  other  words,  a  literal  translation  of  the  splendida 
hilis  of  the  ancie  it  Romans. t 

But  Mr.  L.  Bacon  surpasses  both  his  coadjutors.  In 
his  Plymouth  Anniversary  speech,  he  doubles  behind  a  con- 
cession or  two;  but  in  his  Historical  Discourses,  like  a  rat 
in  a  corner  without  a  loophole,  he  turns  a  fierce  front,  sets 
his  teeth,  and  declares  :  *'  Our  ancestors  made  laws  against 
the  fanatics  with  whom  they  had  to  do,  and  boldly  and  man- 
fully maintained  those  laws.''"J  Alas!  there  is  "  a  train  of 
mists  "  hovering  about  such  stout  allegations,  which  makes 
their  truth  quite  cloudy.  If  Messrs.  Bancroft  and  Bacon 
can  see  through  them,  their  eyes  would  sell  for  diamonds 
among  the  fishermen  of  our  fog-banks.§ 

However,  let  me  not  overrule  them,  as  they  try  to  do 
others,  by  assertion  only.  I  am  very  willing  to  argue  the 
matter  a  little  for  the  satisfaction  of  some;  since  writers  like 
Gough  and  Douglass,  to  say  nothing  of  Sewel,||  distinctly 
repudiate  the  excuse  that  the  Quakers  were  not  punished  for 
heresy,  but  for  sedition  and  rebellion.  This  is  the  present 
excuse,  (as  most  people  are  aware  ;)  but  perhaps  many  are 
not  aware  that  it  was  the  old  excuse   also,  and  has  had  an 

*  Bancroft,  i.  463,  341.  t  Horace,  Sat.  lib.  ii.  3.  141. 

X  Bacon's  Discourses,  edit.  1839,  p.  102. 

§  Neal  is  staggered  by  their  cruelty  to  the  Quakers,  and  cannot 
steady  his  pen  to  say  it  was  foif  civil  offences.  He  says  they  were  pun- 
ished for  their  religion. — N.  Eng.  i.  284. 

II  See  Sevvel.  p.  273. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  325 

old  answer.  Yet  this  is  the  language  that  Gough  holds. — 
'*  For  as  to  the  undermining  or  inciting  to  disaffection  to 
the  civil  government  to  its  ruin,  these  are  no  more  than 
vague  pretexts,  unsupported  by  matter  of  fact.  The  usual 
subterfuge  of  persecution  to  strip  itself  of  the  odium  of  its 
real  character  is,  to  clothe  religious  dissent  with  the  robe  of 
sedition  in  the  state."*  And  this  is  the  plain  comment  of 
Douglass.  "  These  banishments  were  under  pretence  of 
preserving  the  public  peace,  and  preventing  of  sectary 
infection  ;  and,  as  is  natural  to  all  zealots  and  bigots,  they 
fell  into  the  same  error  of  rigidity  which  they  complained  of, 
upon  their  emigration  from  the  Church  of  England.  At  a 
general  synod  in  Newtown,  near  Boston,  which  was  called 
August  30,  1637,  eighty  erroneous  opinions  were  presented, 
debated,  and  condemned,  and  by  the  General  Assembly  or 
Legislature  of  the  Colony,  October  2d,  following,  some 
persons  were  banished. "t 

So  it  would  seem  that  banishment  for  opinions'  sake 
was  no  new  thing  in  Massachusetts,  it  having  begun  twenty 
years  before  ;  and,  too,  long  before  any  Quakers  had  made 
their  appearance  in  the  Colony  :  the  first  Quakers  making 
their  appearance,  according  to  Dr.  Holmes,  in  1656.J  And 
as  to  the  folly  of  harassing  the  Quakers,  the  admonitory 
experience  and  sound  counsel  of  her  sister  Rhode  Island,  in 
1657,  ought  to  have  made  Massachusetts  cautious,  if  not 
clement.  But  no ;  her  wrath  in  1659  has  grown  hotter, 
instead  of  cooler.  The  Quakers  must  depart  forever,  or 
they  must  die.  And  if  they  died,  there;  would  be  said  over 
their  graves,   (if  graves   could  be   found  for  them,)§  what 

*  Goiigh,  i.  376.     Also  ii.  34,  35,  note. 

t  Douglass'  Summary,  ii.  76,  note.  \  Annals,  i.  307. 

§  One  of  the  Lambeth  Manuscripts  of  Dr.  Hawks  says,  that  refugees 
from  Massachusetts  to  Rhode  Island  were  driven  away  in  such  a  helpless, 
destitute  condition,  that  many  of  them  at  first  had  to  live  "  in  caves  and 
in  dens  of  the  earth." 

15 


326  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

Rome  says  over  the  victims  of  the  Inquisition,  *  They  per- 
ished for  offences  against  the  State  :  the  Church  is  guiltless 
of  their  blood.' 

Ah !  how  did  Puritan  Massachusetts  forget  her  pro- 
fessed reverence  for  the  Law  of  Moses !  For  there,  in  close 
alliance  with  statutes  she  pretended  to  honor,  was  the  em- 
phatic one  about  emigrants  ;  which  to  her  own  legislators, 
(themselves  emigrants,)  ought  to  have  been  pathetically 
powerful  :  "  And  if  a  stranger  sojourn  with  thee  in  your 
land,  ye  shall  not  vex  him  ;"  or  as  the  margin  reads,  which 
they  were  more  likely  to  see,  than  we  in  these  days  of  no 
notes  and  comments,  "  ye  shall  not  oppress  him."  (Levit. 
xix.  33.) 

And  how,  too,  did  she  forget  her  own  law  !  For  the  lan- 
o-uage  of  her  own  statute  directly  contravenes  the  theory, 
that  the  Quakers  suffered  as  rebels  against  the  State,  and 
not  as  heretical  dissenters  from  the  Church.*  I  say  the 
language  of  her  own  statute;  and  I  speak  advisedly,  notwith- 
standing the  vindication  put  forth  by  Endicott  &  Co., 
which  the  Quarterly  Review  reminded  Dr.  Holmes  he  did 
but  squint  at.  The  bloody  decree  of  1658  does  indeed  talk 
of  mutiny,  sedition,  and  rebellion;  but  it  talks  of  them  as 
separate  counts  of  an  indictment. t  They  are  associated 
with  "  the  taking  up,  publishing,  and  defending  the  horrid 
opinions  of  the  Quakers,"  not  by  the  copulative  and,  but 
by  the  disjunctive  or.  This  is  a  small  thing,  indeed  :  but 
it  is  not  the  first  nor  the  thousandth  time,  a  small  thino- 
has  proved  the  gist  of  a  matter.  It  unravels  the  whole 
affair.  It  shows  that  a  person  was  liable,  indeed,  for  provok- 
ing mutiny,  but  that  he  was  also,  and  besides  liable,  for 
"  taking  up,  publishing,  and  defending,"  certain  mere  opin- 
ions.    And,  now,  what   were  those  mere  opinions  ?     The 

*  Neal  argues  the  same  from  another  statute,  and  he  must  be  right, 
if  I  am  not.     So  the  case  is  perfectly  desperate.     New  England,  i.  284. 
t  Hazard's  Coll.  ii.  563. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  327 

answer  settles  the  case  demonstratively.  They  were  the 
opinions  of  the  Quakers. 

Will  it  still  be  said  that  Puritan  Massachusetts  never 
took  human  life  for  mere  opinions?  The  statute  in  ques- 
tion gives  me  yet  further  aid,  for  a  reply.  It  says,  not  only 
that  Quakers  shall  themselves  suffer,  but  that  "  adhering  to, 
or  approving  of,  any  known  Quakers,  or  the  tenets  or  prac- 
tices of  the  Quakers,"  shall  render  one  liable  to  the  same 
penalties,  which  might  fall  on  the  veriest  devotee  of  the 
entire  sect.*  So  that  if  a  Congregationalist  himself  had 
gone  so  far  as  to  adhere  to  a  poor  Quaker,  out  of  sheer 
pity,  or  to  say  that  with  him  he  doubted  the  lawfulness  of 
war,t  (for  that  was  one  of  "  the  horrid  opinions,"  specifi- 
cally and  legislatively  condemned,  Anc.  Col,  Laws,  p.  120,) 
he,  too,  would  have  been  accounted  a  Quaker,  to  all  intents 
and  purposes,  and,  with  the  "  cursed  "  object  of  his  sympa- 
thy, have  lost  his  home,  or  swung  upon  a  gallows. t 

And  even  yet  shall  we  be  told  Puritan  Massachusetts  never 
sentenced  heresy  as  heresy  ?  Never  sentenced  heresy  ?  She 
sentenced  the  misprision  of  heresy.  She  manufactured  con- 
structive heresy,  when  she  could  not  reach  more  nearly  an 
opponent  to  her  Draconian  code  ;  and  for  that  crime — the 
crime  of  her  own  violent  suspicions — hurried  her  victim  to 
his  doom.  Now  we  are  told  that  it  is  the  very  quintessence 
of  tyranny,  to  make  crimes  constructive — that  under  a  statute 
of  constructive  treason,  e.  g.,  any  one's  life   may  be  filched 

*  When  Lecklra  was  tried  for  his  Hfe,  he  asked  what  evil  he  had 
done.  The  answer  was,  "  That  he  owned  those  Quakers  that  were  put  to 
death,  and  that  they  were  innocent."  Sewel,  p.  274.  This  is  practical 
commentary.     Mr.  Bacon  is  right  ;  the  laws  were  boldly  maintained. 

t  Affording  a  Quaker  entertainment  was  fatal  to  a  military  man. 
See  Cudworth's  case.     Sewel,  p.  226. 

X  Spur  and  Hazell  were  in  danger  of  no  one  knows  how  much,  had 
they  not  departed  from  Massachusetts,  merely  for  sympathizing  with  a 
punished  Baptist.  So  sympathy  with  any  heretic  was  fatal.  Neal's 
N.  Eng.  i.  253. 


328  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

from  him  by  inimical  power.*  Where  then  is  the  position 
of  Puritan  Massachusetts,  in  tlie  history  most  unblessed  of 
all  on  earth — the  history  of  vindictive  despotism? 

But  I  have  pursued  an  argument  far  enough,  which  any 
thing  but  undying  prejudice  might  have  spared  me.  I  will 
therefore  go  back  to  Friend  Sewel,  whom  I  can  now  **  ad- 
here to  and  approve  of"  without  risk  of  banishment,  or  a 
halter,  and  take  up  his  story,  which  he  said  was  "  to  be 
related  hereafter." 

This  story  refers  to  the  execution  of  William  Leddra, 
the  sentence  of  Wenlock  Christison  to  death,  the  imprison- 
ment of  twenty-seven  of  their  brethren,  who  were  released 
after  Leddra  was  hung,  in  consequence  of  fears  of  royal 
interposition,  and  the  release  of  a  fresh  batch,  of  I  know 
not  how  many,  whom  the  Puritans  had,  notwithstanding, 
contrived  to  bury  in  their  dungeons,  before  the  dreaded 
interposition  actually  came.  Leddra  suffered  on  the  14th 
of  March,  166L  Christison  was  tried  and  condemned, 
about  a  fortnight  after ;  but  his  sentence  not  executed — 
nay,  he  and  twenty-seven  more,  among  whom,  says  Sewel, 
p.  280,  "  there  were  then  several  that  had  been  banished 
on  pain  of  death,"  were  suddenly  set  at  liberty,  after  a 
sound  whipping  of  two  poor  victims,  by,  as  was  usual, 
doubtless,  *'  an  able  man."t  So  the  final  emancipation  of 
the  Quakers,  one  might  suppose,  happened  on  the  first  of 
April.  And  yet  when  the  King's  mandamust  actually 
arrived,  in   the  following  December,  lo  !    the  prison  is  full 

*  Montesquieu's  Spirit  of  Laws,  Lib.  xii.  ch.  7.  Lieber's  Hermeneu- 
tics,  p.  137. 

t  Sewel,  p.  226,  speaking  of  a  whipping  Robinson  was  doomed  to,  as 
a  harbinger  of  something  worse,  says,"  and  the  constable  was  command- 
ed to  get  an  able  man  to  do  it."  Puritan  scourging  was  "  slashing,"  as 
it  has  well  been  called. 

t  Oldmixon  says,  a  Presbyterian  high  in  office  tried  to  stop  this  man- 
damus, and  could  not.     Brit.  Emp.  in  America,  i.  108. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  329 

again,  and  set  open   then,  in  compliance  with  nothing  but 
an  imperative  royal  order  ! 

After  all,  therefore,  fear  of  the  King  drew  the  bolts  of 
a  Quaker's  dungeon  but  for  a  little  while;  and  as  we  shall 
presently  see,  the  same  fear  exempted  him,  but  for  a  short 
time,  from  the  old  penalties  of  banishment  and  death.  The 
mandamus  not  only  forbade  death,  but  also  *'  other  corporal 
punishment;"  and  required  Massachusetts  to  send  its  crim- 
inals to  England,  "  that,"  says  Charles,  ''  such  course  may 
be  taken  with  them  here,  as  shall  be  agreeable  to  our  laws 
and  their  demerits."*  Hutchinson  affirms  that  the  Puritans 
**  prudently  complied  with  this  instruction,  and  suspended 
the  execution  of  the  laws  against  the  Quakers,  so  far  as 
respected  corporeal  punishment,  until  further  order."t  On 
the  same  page,  he  says,  **  the  laws  were  afterwards  revived, 
so  far  as  respected  vagabond  Quakers,  whose  punishment 
was  limited  to  whipping,  and,  as  a  further  favor,  through 
three  towns  only !"  But  this  is  hardly  a  correct,  it  is  most 
certainly  not  an  exact  account,  of  the  position  of  things. 
Hutchinson  blinks  the  fact,  that  the  whipping  "  through 
three  towns  only,"  was  the  solitary  exception,  to  the  bloody 
and  fiery  laws  of  1658  and  1661.  The  law  of  1661,  which 
allowed  branding  and  death,  though  death  not  quite  so 
quickly  as  the  law  of  1658,  was  revived,  after  the  King's 
mandamus,  viz.,  in  1662,  (but  a  few  months,  probably,  after 
its  reception,)  and  ordained  to  "  be  henceforth  in  force,  in 
all  respects,^  with  the  nominal  exception  specified. | 

Oh,  with  what  rueful  reluctance,  with  what  limping  leni- 
ty, did  Puritanism  dole  out  the  semblance  of  mercy  to  the 
victim  of  its  execrations;  and  then,  with  the  old  scent  of 
blood  in  its  nostrils,  again  stretch  out  its  arm  to  fasten  him 
in  its  gripe  of  death  !  A  Quaker  was  not  to  be  whipped 
out  of  the  Commonwealth  as  formerly,  but  if  he  returned, 

«  Sewel,  p.  281.  t  Hutchinson,  i.  188.  \  Hazard's  Col.  ii.  611. 


330  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

Puritanism,  as  her  prompter  Endicott  said,  would  be  just  as 
ready  to  take  his  life,  as  he  to  risk  it.  A  bare  tempo- 
rary suspension  of  an  act  of  extermination,  is  all  the  boon 
which  can  be  granted  him  ;  even  at  the  instance  of  One,  on 
whose  favor  the  very  safety  of  chartered  rights  was  hanging.* 
Nevertheless,  says  Mr.  Bancroft,  as  if  Massachusetts 
were  to  become  a  life-preserver  instead  of  a  life-destroyer  to 
the  Quaker,  after  the  release  of  Christison  and  his  twenty- 
seven  companions,  *'  the  doctrine  of  toleration,  with  the 
pledges  of  peace,  hovered  like  the  dove  at  the  window  of 
the  ark,  waiting  to  be  received  into  its  rightful  refuge. "t 
Rightful  refuge  ?  The  historian  of  the  United  States  had 
better  enliven  his  memory  about  the  revival  of  the  law  of 
death,  andthen  look  back  upon  one  of  his  own  pages,  and 
read  the  solemn  refutation  of  himself,  and  of  all  other  spe- 
cial pleaders  for  the  merciless.  "  It  has  been  attempted  to 
excuse  the  atrocity  of  the  law,  because  the  Quakers  avowed 
principles  subversive  of  social  order.  Any  government 
might,  on  the  same  grounds,  find  in  its  unreasonable  fears 
an  excuse  for  its  cruelties.  The  argument  justifies  the 
expulsion  of  the  Moors  from  Spain,  of  the  Huguenots  from 
France ;  and  it  forms  a  complete  apology  for  Laud,  who 
was  honest  in  his  bigotry,  persecuting  the  Puritans  with  the 
same  good  faith,  with  which  he  recorded  his  dreams."J 

*  This  apparent  submission  to  King  Charles,  and  virtual  insubmission 
to  him,  and  deception  of  him,  when  they  supposed  he  might  have  forgot- 
ten his  mandamus,  happened,  it  must  be  recollected,  during  the  last  years 
of  Endicott's  administration  and  life.  He  died  in  1665,  aet.  75.  I  have 
already  quote'd  Tacitus  in  connexion  with  his  name,  and  he  so  strongly 
reminds  me  of  anothy  parallel,  that  I  must  quote  again.  "  Jam  Tiberi- 
um  corpus,  jam  vires,  nondum  dissimulatio  deserebat.  Idem  animi 
rigor." — Tac.  Ann.  Liber  vi.  sect.  50. 

t  Bancroft,  i.  458. 

t  Bancroft  i.  454.  Mr.  B.  cannot  give  Laud  his  due,  without  a 
sneer  at  the  notice  of  dreams  in  his  Diary.  The  compliment  might  be  re- 
paid by  a  sneer  at  his  own  consistency.     Will  it  be  believed  ?     His  ink  ia 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  331 

But  my  pen  will  stray  on  too  hr  ;  and  it  is  time  to  teach 
it  the  Quaker  virtue  of  quiescence,  and  bring  this  letter  to 
a  close. 

It  was  my  intention  to  have  given  some  of  the  details  of 
the  execution  of  Leddra,  who,  through  an  entire  "  very  cold 
winter,"  and  during ''night  and  day,"  and  "in  an  open  prison," 
was  chained  to  a  log,  as  though  he  had  been  a  hyaena,  and  not 
a  man — to  show  also,  in  Sewel's  own  style,  how  he  was  at- 
tended with  a  Puritan  father-confessor,  who,  though  he 
mocked  him  not  with  beads  and  a  cross,  did  mock  him  with 
misapplications  of  Scripture — how  his  solemn  appeal  to  his 
mother-country  for  justice,  was  not  so  much  as  noticed — 
how  he  was  dragged  to  the  scaffold,  after  the  lecture  was 
duly  ended,  by  the  Governor  and  his  guards,  and  how,  to 
the  end,  he  "  continued  cheerful,  and  died  like  Stephen, 
exclaiming,  '  Lord  Jesus,  receive  my  spirit.'  " 

It  was  also  my  intention,  to  have  inserted  some  account 
of  the  tedious  trial  and  fearless  replies  of  Wenlock  Christi- 
son ;  who  was  doomed  to  death,  but  saved  through  the  fears 
of  a  day-dream  somewhat  more  substantial,  than  the  night- 
visions  of  an  old  tormented  Archbishop.  For  this  I  was  the 
more  disposed,  since  Chalmers  says  of  him,  in  his  Political 
Annals,  "  The  spirit  and  talents  displayed  by  Wenlock 
Christison  on  his  trial,  would  have  done  honor  to  Sidney."* 
One  little  exquisite  specimen  of  the  logic  of  his  judges  is  all, 
however,  which  I  will  specify.!     Christison  told  them  they 

hardly  dry,  before  he  writes,  on  p.  455, "  America  was  guilty  of  the  death 
of  four  individuals,  and  they  fell  victims  rather  to  the  contest  of  will,  than 
to  the  opinion  that  Quakerism  is  a  capital  crime."  Mr.  B.  forgot  the  re- 
vived laws.  No  wonder  he  should  forget  Laud's  Diary.  "  I  am  not  moved 
by  dreams,"  says  the  Archbishop,  "  yet  I  thought  fit  to  remember  this." 
Troubles  &c.  p.  57.  His  Diary,  too,  was  for  his  own  eyes  alone.  And 
if  Frynne  had  not  robbed  him  of  it.  and  garbled  it,  none  of  us  might  have 
been  the  wiser  for  these  visions  of  a  Churchman's  sleep.  However,  when 
Puritanism  would  talk  of  Laud's  harmless  superstition,  let  it  remember  its 
life-taking  witchcraft  some  sixty  years  later ! 

»  Annals,  p.  191.  t  Gough,  i.  480. 


333  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

could  not  hang  Quakers  by  their  new  law,  because  it  was 
repugnant  to  the  laws  of  England  ;  and  their  charter  forbade 
the  enactment  of  any  such  law  whatever.  "  I  appeal," 
said  he,  **  to  the  judicatories  of  our  common  country  :  / 
never  heard  nor  read  of  any  statute  that  was  in  Old  England 
to  hang  Quakers.''  Sound,  statesmanlike  reasoning.  How 
was  it  answered  ?  Why,  they  said,  "  there  was  a  statute  in 
England  to  hang  the  Jesuits."  No  wonder  they  were  a 
fortnight  in  circumambulating  to  reach  such  a  matchless 
conclusion ! 

But  I  forbear.  Time  and  space  will  not  permit  me  to 
enlarge,  and  perhaps  many  will  think  I  have  offered  enough 
already,  from  some  of  the  darkest  chapters  of  human  history 
— have  dwelt  sufficiently  on  deeds  which  Turks,  Monks, 
Inquisitors,  and  ''  Salvages,"  to  let  Laud  and  High  Com- 
mission judges  pass  as  samples  of  comparative  innocence, 
will  rise  up  in  judgment  to  condemn.  I  am  willing  to  let 
the  awful  and  opprobious  records  before  me  be  closed  ;  and 
have  purposely  given  much  of  this  letter  by  reference  or 
quotation;  for  the  blood  of  Quakers  flows  in  my  veins,  and 
perhaps  too  warmly,  while  I  linger  over  the  bitter  tale  of 
their  wrongs  and  their  woes. 

And  yet,  strange  to  say,  my  Episcopal  blood  comes  through 
the  same  channel ;  as,  to  put  some  readers  in  better  humor 
before  parting,  I  am  quite  willing  to  tell.  I  find  the  follow- 
ing account  of  my  Quaker  ancestor,  who  became  a  Church- 
man, in  Deane's  History  of  Scituate,  and  give  it  in  his  own 
words.  '*  He  left  Scituate  in  1704,  and  settled  in  Newport. 
He  had  previously  married  Ruth,  daughter  of  Deacon  J.  B,, 
senior.  To  this  match  there  had  been  several  objections  : 
the  Quakers  disapproved  of  his  marrying  out  of  the  Society, 
and  the  Congregationalists  of  his  marrying  into  theirs;  and 
moreover,  the  woman  was  very  young.  However,  the  san- 
guine temperament  of was  not  to  be  foiled,  and  he  is 

said  to  have  addressed  the  young  woman,  in  the  presence  of 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  333 

her  family,  in  the  following  words  :  '  Ruth,  let  us  break 
away  from  this  unreasonable  bondage.  I  will  give  up  my 
religion,  and  thou  shall  give  up  thine,  and  we  will  go  the 
Church  of  England,  and  go  to  the  d— 1  together.'  They 
fulfilled  this  resolution,"  adds  my  annalist,  "  so  far  as  going 
to  Church,  and  marrying,  and  adhering  to  the  Church  of 
England  during  life." 

The  anecdote  shows  that  my  worthy  progenitor  was 
somewhat  rude,  perhaps,  in  speech,  "  And  little  blest  with 
the  set  phrase  of  peace."  But  I  trust  my  fair  readers,  if  I 
have  any,  will  forgive  him,  for  his  devotion  to  his  lady-love  ; 
and  that  sober  Churchmen  will  excuse  his  language,  as  a 
true,  if  rough  memento,  of  the  opinions  entertained  of  their 
communion  by  those,  who  once  esteemed  and  avowed  it  a 
dear  mother,  from  whom  they  had  obtained  all  *  their  hope 
and  part  in  the  common  salvation. 


LETTER  XVI. 

My  readers  have  now  seen  how  the  Puritans  entertained 
Churchmen,  Baptists,  and  Quakers.  The  present  letter  is 
to  show,  how  they  bore  themselves  towards  Papists;  whom, 
in  a  law  against  them,  in  1647,  they  represent  as  the  authors 
of  "  great    combustions  and    divisions, "t    and     for  whom, 

*  The  exact  language  of  the  famous  Arabella  letter  is,  "  ever  ac- 
knowledging, that  such  hope  and  part  as  we  have  obtained  in  the  com- 
mon salvation,  we  have  received  in  her  bosom,  and  sucked  it  from  her 
breasts." 

t  There  is  no  evidence  to  show,  that  the  Jesuits  had  given  the  Puri- 
tans in  New  England  any  trouble,  or  were  likely  to  do  so.  (Mass.  Hist. 
Coll.  1st  ser.  vi.  257.)  Nevertheless,  it  was  part  of  the  orthodoxy  of  the 
day,  to  denounce  Popery  in  the  most  unmeasured  terms.     For  example, 


L 


334  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

therefore,  they  might  have  indulged,  one  would  suppose,  a 
little  fellow-feeling.* 

Another  letter,  perhaps,  may  be  devoted  to  the  Presby- 
terians and  the  Aborigines;  and  that  probably  will  be 
deemed  sufficient  to  establish  my  proposition,  that  the 
Puritans  were  tolerant  of  nobody  but  themselves — were  a 
sort  of  Ishmaelites — and  that,  consequently,  murmurs  for  a 
lack  of  complaisance  come  from  their  lips  with  a  grace  so 
ill,  as  to  provoke  the  laugh  of  scorn.  There  will  be  less 
necessity  for  displaying  their  regards  towards  the  honest 
Dutch  ;  as  it  has  been  seen  already,  how  frostily  they  looked 
upon  a  sturdy  self-will,  in  which  the  Dutch  were  their  full 
equals ;  and,  too,  how  gratefully  they  remembered  Dutch 
hospitality  and  toleration,  when  they  reached  this  side  of 
"  the  big  water."  The  Elders,  it  will  be  recollected,  es- 
teemed the  Dutch,  what  Napoleon  did  his  soldiers,  "  food 
for  gunpowder  ;"  and  would  have  had  them  duly  excommu- 
nicated with  a  little  cold  lead.t  As  to  the  Gortonists,  or 
Gortonians,  it  might  have  been  entertaining,  if  not  profita- 
ble, to  give  some  account  of  their  founder,  whom  the  Gov- 
ernor of  Massachusetts  pronounced  not  fit  to  live  upon  the 
face  of  the  earth,  but  whose  last  disciple  was  nevertheless 

Milton  calls  it  "  the  worst  of  superstitions,  and  the  heaviest  of  all  God's 
judgments,"  worse,  of  course,  than  Paganism  or  Deism. — Prose  Works,  p. 
566. — Any  one  who  should  venture  to  say,  with  Bishop  Montague,  "  I 
ought  not  to  go  farther  from  the  Church  of  Rome  in  these  her  worst 
days,  than  she  hath  gone  away  from  herself  in  her  best  days,"  was  a  Pa- 
pist, black  as  jet,  forthwith.  That  one  sentence  of  Montague's  Appeal, 
(p.  113,)  was  enough  to  doom  him  "  to  the  sides  of  the  pit."  So,  at  the 
present  day,  the  safe  way  of  proving  one's  self  a  true  Protestant,  is  to  say 
with  the  Presbyterian  Dr.  Spring  of  New- York,  that  it  were  better  to  be 
an  infidel  than  a  Romanist.  Then  your  piety  and  orthodoxy  may  pass 
muster. 

*  Let  it  here  be  remembered,  that  the  professed  starting-point  of  the 
Jesuits  and  Puritans  was  the  same — the  conversion  of  the  infidels. 

t  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  167,  168-170. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  335 

discovered  by  President  Stiles  so  late  as  1771.*  Mrs. 
Hutchinson,  too,  who  conciliated  such  men  as  Sir  Harry 
Vane  t  and  Master  Cotton,  furnishes  a  romantic  episode  in 
Puritanic  history;  and  might  have  done  so  with  even  greater 
wonders,  if  Sir  Harry  had  not  thought  it  wisest  to  retreat  in 
time,  and  Master  Cotton  to  trim  his  canvass  to  the  breeze,  so 
as  to  avoid  the  breakers  |  Master  Wheelright,  also,  into 
whose  brain  a  crotchet  or  two  had  found  its  way,  may  be 
counted  among  Puritanic  victims,  though  a  Calvinist  of  the 
first  water. §  And  so  may  Mrs.  Oliver;  a  lady  whom  Win- 
throp's  Journal  1|  pronounces,  "  for  ability  of  speech  and  ap- 
pearance of  zeal  and  devotion,  far^before  Mrs.  Hutchinson." 
Her  opinions,  however,  were  quite  too  democratic  for  the 
Elders ;  and  accordingly  her  lively  tongue  was  deprived  of 
its  volubility  by  *'  a  cleft  stick."  ^  As  a  specimen  of  the 
vagaries  of  Puritanism,  when  it  enters  the  department  of 
jurisprudence,  I  might  have  sketched  the  famous  "  sow 
business,"  as  Winthrop  calls  it,  or,  as  it  is  styled  by  another 
author,  "  the  great  hog  case."  But  I  have  neither  time  nor 
space  to  give  memorabilia  of  these  matters.  Gorton's  story 
might  well  repay  one  fond  of  antiquarian  researches  ;  but  as 
his  sect  has  perished,  it  would  be  less  interesting  to  the 
general  reader.  There  is  a  volume,  however,  now  accessi- 
ble, in  which  he  may  be  heard  for  himself  by  the  curious.  It 
forms  the  second  volume  of  the  Collections  of  the  Rhode 
Island  Historical  Society.  Its  title  has  been  quoted  already ; 
but  some  may  not  be  unwilling  to  be  reminded  of  it  again, 

*  R.  I.  Hist.  Coll.  ii.  19,  57. 

t  Hubbard  calls  Vane  a  canter!  N.  Eng.  p.  290. 

t  Hubbard  p.  297.  §  Williamson's  Maine,  i.  293,  294. 

II  Sav.  Wint.  i.  281,2. 

IT  So  poor  Be  wet  was  banished,  because  he  believed  in  perfection. 
This  shows  that  the  Methodists  would  have  fared  as  hardly  as  any 
others,  from  Puritan  hands,  had  they  then  existed  as  a  sect.  Hubbard, 
p.  277.     Also  Emerson's  First  Ch.  pp.  70,  71 . 


336  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

as  "  Simplicity's  Defence  against  seven-headed  Policy"  may 
have  to  be  resorted  to  in  other  forms,  and  by  other  pens, 
when  tlie  arguments  of  the  present  writer  are  repeated  with 
greater  power,  and  by  abler  hands. 

In  respect  to  Puritans  against  Papists,  I  freely  confess 
reluctance  to  commemorate  severity  towards  those,  whose 
pretensions  to  unchangeableness,  if  founded  upon  an  aim  at 
self-aggrandizement  by  any  means,  how  costly  soever  to 
those  around  them — an  aim  as  infallibly  straight-ahead, 
through  bright  ages  as  through  dark  ones — might  be  sub- 
stantiated beyond  contradiction.  Still,  countries  which 
have  not  made  so  much  clatter  about  liberality  and  tolera- 
tion, as  the  Utopia  of  the  Puritans,  have  borne  with  Papists  ; 
and  it  certainly  did  not  become  pilgrims  for  conscience' 
sake,  to  be  better  in  principle,  but  poorer  in  practice,  than 
"dark  places  of  the  earth"  which  "  are  full  of  the  habita- 
tions of  cruelty."  I  say  '  better  in  principle,  but  poorer  in 
practice';  for  it  is  remarkable,  (and  the  subject  of  my  letter 
reminds  me  of  such  authorities,)  that  the  ingenuousness  of 
Massachusetts  has  been  assailed  by  the  most  opposite  testi- 
fiers, the  Papists  themselves,  and  the  Calvinists  of  Connec- 
ticut.* Be  it  accounted  for  as  it  may,  it  is  certainly  curious 
to  see  D'Aulney,  the  French  Governor  of  Acadia,  on  one 
side,  talking  of  her  "  tricks  of  sleight,"  and  begging  to  be 
dealt  with  "  sincerely  and  without  any  equivocation  ;"t  and 
to  find  Eliot  in  his  Dictionary,  on  the  other,  saying  that 
*'  Dr.  Trumbull,  a  modern  historian  of  excellent  parts  and 

*  King  Charles's  Commissioners,  also,  openly  accused  Massachusetts 
of  "  shuffling." — Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  ser.  viii.  80.  The  Presbyterians 
in  England  accused  the  Puritans  there '"of  similiar  offences. — Edwards' 
Antapologia,  p.  306. 

t  Hey,  a  remarkably  liberal  writer,  accuses  the  Puritans  of  using  pre- 
texts. Jones  of  Nayland  accuses  them  of  corrupting  the  text  of  Scripture. 
The  terrible  sentence  from  the  Monthly  Anthology,  has  already  been 
quoted  in  Note  72. — Hey's  Lectures,  2d  ed.  iv.  86.  Jones's  Theol. 
Works,  V.  62,63 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  337 

character,  has  represented  the  conduct  of  Massachusetts,  in 
not  assisting  the  other  colonies  at  the  time,  as  most  base 
and  treacherous."*  It  is  not  ray  business  to  reconcile  such 
singular  historical  phenomena,  but  I  may  be  pardoned  for 
mentioning  the  sagacious  Winthrop's  anticipation  of  them. 
In  his  *'  Modell  of  Christian  Charity,"  written  on  board  the 
Arabella  while  voyaging  to  New  England,  he  endeavors  to 
warn  his  associates  upon  the  subject  of  worldly  devotion 
and  its  consequences.  If  we,  is  his  remonstrance,  "  dis- 
semhlijig  with  our  God  shall  fall  to  embrace  this  present 
world,  and  prosecute  our  carnall  intentions,  seeking  greate 
things  for  ourselves  and  our  posterity,  the  Lord  will  surely 
breake  out  in  wrathe  against  us."t  ^ 

Let  us  come  now  to  the  first  act  of  the  drama,  in  which 
Puritans  and  Papists  figure  together  on  the  soil  of  New  Eng- 
land. Fortunately,  it  is  rather  an  act  of  a  comedy  than  of  a 
tragedy  :  there  being,  as  yet,  no  "  bloody  tenets",  levelled  at 
the  heads  of  the  devotees  of  Rome.  La  Tour,  a  name  well 
known  in  New  England  history,  (another  French  Governor, 
viz.  of  Nova  Scotia,)  was  constrained  ''  in  his  distress"  to 
enter  Boston  harbor. j:  This  was  in  1643,  when  Winthrop, 
and  not  Endicott,  was  Governor.  The  result  was,  that  the 
papistical  visitant  was  treated  with  considerable  hospitality. 
Perhaps,  as  on  another  occasion, §  he  and  his  companions 
were  even  admitted  to  the  board  gubernatorial,  on  the  Lord's 
Day.  It  is  a  palpable  fact,  that  Winthrop  dined  some  Rom- 
ish gentlemen  of  distinction  on  a  Sunday,  and  sent  a  file  of 
musqueteers  to  escort  themjl — a  freedom  which  the  "  Book 
of  Sports"  might  have  allowed ;  but  which,  unhappily  for 
him,  was  not  provided  for  in  the  "  Coppie  of  the  Liberties 
of  the  Massachusetts  Colonie,"^  which  had   as  many  eyes 

*  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  ser.  vii.  103,  109.     Eliot's  Diet.  p.  339. 
t  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  ser.  vii.  46. 

X  Hutchinson,  i.  124.  §  Hutch,  i.  127,  note.  |I  lb. 

IT  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  ser.  viii.  216.     In  a  hundred  sections. 


338  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

for  sinners  as  Argus  in  the  fable,  i.  e.,  a  full  and  formidable 
hundred.  VVinthrop,  who  could  sculpture  a  *'  Modell  of 
Christian  Charity,"  that  the  Puritans  forgot  as  soon  as  the 
Israelites  forgot  the  tablets  of  Moses,  when  occupied  by  a 
manufacture  of  their  own,  had  a  heart  made  of  softer  mate- 
rial than  President  Stiles's  '*  oak."  He  sympathized  even 
with  Roger  Williams;*  that  rebellious  sower  of  sedition, 
and  setter  up  of  a  conventicle,  as  the  Hon.  J.  Q.  Adams 
stamps  him.  It  were  worth  his  place,  if  not  his  life,  to  favor 
Williams  openly  ;  but  by  a  secret  and  trusty  messenger  he 
points  out  to  him  the  nearest  and  surest  place  of  safety. 
Shakspeare  says,  that  a  good  deed  will  not  shine  to  a  naughty 
world,  any  farther  than  a  little  candle  throws  its  beams. 
But  Shakspeare's  "  wise  saws"  are  not  without  exceptions. 
A  good  deed  will  always  shine  far  enough  for  an  enemy  to 
see  it,  if  he  can  in  any  way  construe  it  for  our  defamation. 
It  is  quite  probable  that  Winthrop's  attempt  to  copy  his  own 
"  modell,"  subjected  him  to  suspicion  and  distrust.!  This, 
coupled  with  that  farewell  letter  from  the  Arabella,  tended, 
no  doubt,  to  provoke  the  dispute  to  which  Hutchinson  al- 
ludes ;  t  and  brought  him  under  the  worst  insinuation  to 
which  he  has  ever  been  exposed — that  of  being  a  covert 
Churchman.  "  When  he  left  England,"  says  his  biographer 
Belknap,  "  he  was  of  a  more  catholic  spirit  than  some  of  his 
brethren. "§  No  wonder  that  extraordinary  concessions  and 
efforts  were  necessary  on  his  part,  to  avert   the  ill  omens 

*  His  son  did  also  with  Richard  Leader,  whose  poor  opinion  of  Endi- 
cott  and  a  Puritanic  church  nearly  cost  him  £50.  His  fine  was  remitted  ; 
doubtless  at  the  intercession  of  a  Winthrop,  true  to  the  spirit  of  his  pre- 
decessor, who  died  pitying  the  heretics. — Felt's  Salem  183,  184. 

t  Savage's  Wint.  i.  178.  He  is  severely  reproached  for  not  being 
strict  enough.  He  could  not  forget  his  solemn  professions  in  the  Arabella 
letter,  so  soon  as  Rev.  Mr.  Phillips,  though  he  was  but  a  layman. — Sav. 
Wint.  i.  14,  note. 

X  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  24. 

§  Belk.  Biog,  ii.  356.     And  see  Note,  96,  about  his  Prayer  Book. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  339 

which  were  hovering  about  his  name.  No  wonder  that  he 
was  a  strenuous  opponent  of  the  Episcopal  and  Presbyterian 
petition  of  1646.  '*  He  fell  in  with  the  reigning  principle 
of  intolerancy,"  is  the  testimony  of  Belknap.  He  was  re- 
luctantly forced  to  wear  the  iron  collar  of  "  seven-headed 
policy,"  I  should  myself  prefer  to  express  it.  And  that  I 
am  right  is  my  full  belief,  when  I  encounter  the  honorable 
and  penitent  relentingsof  his  final  hours.  *'  Upon  his  death- 
bed, when  Mr.  Dudley  pressed  him  to  sign  an  order  of  ban- 
ishment of  a  heterodox  person,  he  refused,  saying,  ^  I  have 
done  too  much  of  that  work  already.^  "* 

Here  the  unsophisticated  temper  of  truth  broke  out,  and 
we  see  this  good  man  speaking  and  acting  his  better  and 
genuine  self.  And  under  the  influence  of  that  temper  he 
began  to  act,  when  the  Papists  first  and  unexpectedly  made 
their  appearance  at  the  capital  of  Massachusetts.  Monsieur 
La  Tour  put  in  there,  very  suddenly,  in  the  summer  of  1643 ; 
and,  though  a  Papist  himself,  had  worldly  wisdom  enough 
to  come  in  a  ship,  whose  master  and  crew  were  Protestants 
from  the  celebrated  Huguenot  port  ofRochelle.t  But  with 
all  this  Protestant  leaven,  it  did  not  answer  for  Winthrop  to 
manifest  the  consideration  which  he  did  for  its  papistical 
concomitants.  His  kindness  to  La  Tour  provoked  a  "  ju- 
dicious minister,"  as  he  himself,  perhaps  sarcastically,  calls 
him,  to  prophesy,  that  "  store  of  blood  would  be  spilled 
in  Boston."  "  Divers  also,"  his  narrative  continues,  *'  wrote 
to  the  Governor,  laying  before  him  great  dangers,  others 
charging  sin  upon  the  conscience  in  all  these  proceedings." 
And  again,  others  argued,  '^  That  La  Tour  is  a  Papist, 
attended  by  priests,  friars,  &c. ;  and  that  they  were  in  the 
case  of  Jehoshaphat  who  joined   with  Ahab,  an  idolater. "| 

*  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  142.  Hubbard  and  Mather  are  silent  about  any  au- 
thority for  this  fact,  says  Mr.  Savage,  "perhaps  from  design." — Sav. 
Wint.  ii,  174,  note. 

t  Hutchinson,  i.  122.  \  Ibid.  123,  note. 


340  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

The  poor  Governor  is  beleaguered  and  bewildered.  He  is 
obliged  to  call  a  meeting,  in  which  it  was  gravely  and  astutely 
queried,  **  Whether  it  were  lawful  for  Christians  to  aid  idol- 
aters,^'^ and  how  far  we  may  hold  communion  with  them?'^* 
Upon  the  discussion  it  were  needless  to  dwell  ;  but  I  must 
beg  attention  to  the  censure  passed  upon  the  Governor's 
errors  in  this  affair,  which  superstition  magnified  from  a 
mole-hill  into  a  mountain.  One  was  that  he  and  his  coad- 
jutors did  not  advise  "  with  any  of  the  Elders,  as  their  man- 
ner was  in  matters  of  less  conseque7ice.''f  That  was  a 
mistake  which  such  as  Dudley,  who  wanted  a  dying  man's 
signature  to  a  penal  warrant,  knew  well  enough  how  to 
avoid.  He  could  thank  God  he  died  *'  no  libertine."  It 
was  no  part  of  his  libertinism,  when  he  had  dealings  with 
Papists,  to  forget  the  Inquisitors  of  his  own  sect.  Under 
his  auspices  the  Elders  are  consulted  most  deferentially. f 

It  is  easy  to  see  from  this,  who  always  pulled  the  wires. 
The  government  of  Massachusetts,  (or  Puritania  ;  if  I 
might  make  a  word  to  embrace  more  territory,  and  exactly 
all  which  my  observation  applies  to,)  was  virtually  an  eccle- 
siastical aristocracy.  It  was  a  grade  above  such  an  Estab- 
lishment as  that  of  England,  where  the  Church  is  nominally 
first,  but  practically  the  second,  and  the  subordinate. § 
There  is  nothing  akin  to  it  in  history,  but  that  tremendous 
engine  of  Popery — heresy's  most  awful  battering-ram,  '  The 
Holy  and  Apostolic  Court  of  the  Inquisition' — which  we 
have  the  highest  juridical  authority  for  pronouncing,  any 
thing  but  a  stranger  to  this  soil  of  spiritual  freedom. || 
Strange    indeed    it    is,  as  some    may  think,  that    its  twin 

115  See  Note  115. 

*  Savage's  Winthrop,  ii.  109.  t  Ibid.  ii.  128. 

$  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  ser.  vii.  107. 

§  The  usual  phrase  is,  "  Church  and  State  ;"  but  the  phrase  as  acted 
on  is,  "  State  and  Church."  ||  Story's  Misc.  p.  66. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  341 

sister  could  not  discover  for  it  a  little  more  of  the  sympa- 
thy of  consanguinity ;  but  we  know  it  is  as  old  as  human 
nature,  that  two  of  a  trade  cannot  agree. 

In  1647,  for  what  purpose,  particularly,  does  not  appear, 
a  severe  law  was  passed  against  the  Jesuits.*  Its  preamble 
seems  to  indicate  a  knowledge  of  great  commotions,  occa- 
sioned by  them  in  Europe,  and  that  the  law  was  made  by 
way  of  welcome,  when,  after  troubling  Europe  sufficiently, 
the  Jesuits  should  try  their  dexterity  in  raising  a  storm  in 
New  England.  However,  the  Puritans,  as  Hubbard  testi- 
fies,t  had  been  more  scared  than  hurt  by  the  Papists,  on  a 
former  occasion ;  and  they  might  at  least  have  had  the 
grace  to  wait,  till  actually  assailed  by  them.  But  no,  like 
Job's  war-horse,  who  "  smelleth  the  battle  afar  off,"  they 
were  rather  eager  for  the  onset ;  having  already  tried  their 
powers  upon  the  unfortunate  Anabaptists.  One  portion  of 
the  law  is  curious.  It  marks  the  native  coincidences 
between  the  Inquisition  of  Puritanism  and  the  Inquisition 
of  Popery.  Both  condemn  upon  bare  suspicion. J  Any 
person  in  Boston  who  gave  '' just  cause  of  suspicion"  that 
he  was  a  Papist,  (and  of  the  justice,  a  Puritan  of  course 
was  the  sole  judge  ;  so  that  justice  lay  in  his  own  conjec- 
ture,) might  be  arrested,  and  doomed  to  a  task  as  hopeless 
as  that  of  Sisyphus — the  rolling  of  such  suspicion  effectually 
away.  In  plain  English,  only  suspect  a  person  of  Popery, 
and  you  might  banish  him  at  your  convenience.  Bring 
him  a  second  time  within  your  reach,  and  you  could  hang 
him  at  your  leisure. 

I  can  forgive  the  Puritans  for  apprehensions  of  a  sect, 
which,  wherever  they  go,  are  perpetually  tampering  with 
government  and  education,  so  as  to  control  "  mind,  body, 
and  estate,"  and  which  even  the  Doctors  of  the  Sorbonne 

*  Holmes's  Annals,  i.  285.     Hazard's  Coll.  i.  550.     Anc.  Col.  Laws, 
p.  129. 

t  N.  Eng    p.  61.  I  Liraborch's  Inquisition,  B.  iii.  ch.  11. 


342  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

thus  lash  :  "  Videtur  ha3c  societas,  in  negotio  fidei  pericu- 
losa,  pacis  Ecclesia?  perturbativa,  religionis  rectae  eversiva ; 
et  magis  ad  destructionem  quam  ad  aedificationem."*  But 
their  law  was  actuated  by  any  temper  save  that  of  the  be- 
nign Ganganelli,  when  he  suppressed  an  Order  whose  name 
is  the  best,  and  whose  practice  the  worst,  of  all  associa- 
tions.t  It  allowed  any  judge,  after  the  fashion  of  the  In- 
quisition, to  suspect,  and,  according  to  his  suspicion,  to 
doom  to  infamy  or  death  the  victim  of  popular  prejudice. 
Nor  so  only,  but  it  must  be  interpreted  by  the  practices 
with  which  it  was  surrounded — by  the  restless  warfare  car- 
ried on  against  Churchmen,  Baptists,  Quakers,  Presbyte- 
rians, Gortonians,  Hutchinsonians,  Seekers,  and  the  Abori- 
gines I — against  all  indeed  of  every  name,  who  doubted  of 
their  "  civil  government  and  church-order,"  or  their  •*  or- 
thodox received  opinions." 

So  late  as  A.  D.  1700,  another  law,  whose  penalties 
were  perpetual  imprisonment  or  death,  was  made  against 
the  Papists.  It  is  almost  unaccountable,  that  Mr.  Walsh, 
(himself  1  suppose  a  Papist,)  should  have  forgotten  this, 
and  that  he  will  have  it,  that  all  traces  of  New  England  per- 
secution had  passed  away  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth 
century  ;  when  that  very  close  attested  the  hurling  of  such 
a  bolt  of  vengeance,  at  the  Church  he  calls  a  Holy  Mother. 
The  act  is  prefaced  with  an  apology  for  its  severity  :  the 
Papists,  the  Jesuits  especially,  were  supposed  to  be  attem- 
pering the  Indians  for  the  purposes  of  France.  Yet  it  bears 
the  old  ensigns  of  inquisitorial  cruelty.  It  not  only  con- 
demned the  professed  Papist,  but  all  who  should  "  otherwise 

*  Heylin's  Presbyterians,  p.  462. 

t  Possibly,  some  persons  may  not  understand,  that  Jesuit  is  derived 
from  Jesus;  and  means,  par  excellence,  a  follower  of  Jesus  Christ  I ! 

X  And  as  Bewet's  case  shows,  the  Methodists,  too,  must  have  been 
written  in  this  list,  had  they  existed  as  a  sect.  See  the  note  on  Bewet, 
near  the  beginning  of  this  Letter,  p.  335. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  343 

appear  to  be  such."*  It  allowed  any  suspected  person  to  be 
apprehended  "  without  warrant."  Now  the  use  of  "  the 
sign  of  the  cross,"  is  not  peculiar  to  Papists  ;t  but  in  such 
times  as  could  justify  Endicott's  logic,  that  a  law  against  a 
Jesuit  is  law  enough  to  hang  a  Quaker,  this  law  might 
have  been  employed  against  a  Churchman,  and  made  his 
fate  no  better  than  that  of  an  emissary  of  Rome.  Henry 
VTII.  sent  the  denier  of  his  supremacy,  and  the  denier  of 
the  Pope's  supremacy,  to  execution  upon  the  same  hurdle. 
Let  persecution  have  been  as  safe  in  the  administration  of 
Endicott,  and  he  would  have  found  a  law  against  the  Jesuits 
sufficient  wherewith  to  decapitate  a  whole  bench  of  bishops. 

With  the  laws  of  Puritan  Massachusetts  respecting 
Popery,  let  us  now  compare  the  following  sentiment  uttered 
by  a  Churchman  and  a  priest,  in  our  own  country,  previous 
to  our  Revolution.  "I  do  contend,"  he  says,  "that  Papists 
should,  both  of  right  and  in  point  of  prudence,  be  put  upon 
a  footing  in  this  respect,  ['  civil  restraints,']  with  other  dis- 
senters."!  Compare  with  it  also  the  violence  with  which 
Independents  (alias  Puritans)  upbraided  the  Parliament  and 
Administration  of  Great  Britain  for  "  misgovernment," 
because  a  statute  was  passed  by  them,  denominated  the 
Quebec  Act — an  act  by  which  Papists  were  tolerated  in  a 
province,  where  they  constituted  "  almost  the  whole  of  its 
inhabitants. "§ 

Now  this  Quebec  Act,  according  to  Dr.  Holmes,||  dates 
as  far  down  as  1774 ;  so  that  till  so  late  a  period,  it  appears 

*  See  Eliot's  edit.  Mass.  Laws,  1726,  p.  134,  folio. 

t  Nor  to  Lutherans  or  to  Calvinists.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Jarvis  informed 
me  he  saw  a  gilt  cross  in  the  church  of  the  celebrated  Mr.  D'Aubigne, 
author  of  the  History  of  the  Reformation,  and  that  Mr.  D.  congratulated 
himself  that  it  was  not  a  crucifix  !  That  was  his  distinction  ;  and  yet 
Mr.  D.  is  one  of  the  most  famous  Anti-Puseyites  of  the  day. — The  Luthe- 
rans, the  Protestants  by  descent,  have  the  crucifix. 

t  Boucher's  Disc.  p.  270.  §  Boucher's  Disc.  p.  242. 

II  Annals,  ii.  186. 


344  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

that  the  Papists  would  have  encountered  no  more  cheerful 
welcome  from  the  Puritans,  than  in  1647  or  1700.  In 
1700,  apprehension  without  warrant,  and  perpetual  impris- 
onment or  death,  was  their  due  by  Puritan  law ;  though 
Dr.  Holmes  suppresses  all  the  ugly  features  of  the  statute, 
and  merely  tells  us  they  were  required  to  go  away  !*  He  is 
careful  enough  to  tell  us,  the  Inquisition  was  established  in 
South  America  in  1570,  by  Philip  II.  of  Spain  ;t  whom 
the  Dutch  used  to  call  a  demon.  And  Justice  Story  is 
frank  enough  to  tell  us,  it  was  virtually  established  in  Mas- 
sachusetts, at  a  much  later  date,  and  by  a  people  whom 
themselves  have  called  "  stars,"  "  patriarchs,"  "  sons  of 
liberty;"  and  I  know  not  by  how  many  more  brilliant,  ven- 
erable, and  patriotic  names. 

It  is  sufficiently  clear,  however,  that  one  class  of  the 
community,  (the  Papists,)  even  when  bigoted  Churchmen 
were  disposed  to  tolerate  them,  and,  as  in  Canada,  did 
actually  tolerate  them,  that  this  class  would  have  received 
from  them  a  scanty  as  portion  of  mercy  as  ever.  If  '*  writs 
of  assistance,"!  (which  I  by  no  means  defend,  for  I  believe 
my  country  was  cruelly  oppressed  by  Great  Britain  ;  as  she 
never  would  have  been,  if  statesmen  like  Chatham,  Camden, 
and  Burke,  had  been  listened  to,)  if,  I  say,  "  writs  of 
assistance"  had  only  been  designed  for  the  sheriffs  to  drag 
Papists  to  execution,  fearfully  they  would  have  provoked 
but  faint  objections  from  Puritan  lawyers.  I  must  believe 
this,  and  that  Puritanism  has  in  it  the  essential  elements  of 
exclusiveness  and  supremacy  ;  else,  why  should  it  denounce 
the  British  Government  for  an  act  of  bare  justice  to  Popish 
Canada  ?  Else,  why  should  a  Puritan  write  so  vehemently 
against  canon  and  feudal  law,  and  try  to  persuade  the  Amer- 
ican Colonies  to  believe  the  chimera,  that  a  British  Episcopal 

*  Holmes's  Annals,  i.  476.  t  Holmes's  Annals,  i.  90. 

X  For  sjme  account  of  these  writs,  see  Holmes's  Annals,  ii.  104. — 
Tudor's  Otis,  p.  52,  etc. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  345 

Missionary  Society  was  scheming  to  inflict  the  first  (at  least) 
upon  them  ;*  when  no  sooner  is  that  Puritan  a  President  of 
the  United  States,  than  he  himself  inflicts  upon  them  an  alien 
and  a  sedition  law  ?  It  is  no  marvel  that  alien  and  sedition 
laws,f  [alias  gag-laws,  &c.,  as  the  familiar  phrase  was  in  my 
boyhood,]  should  come  from  Massachusetts,  which  gave  us 
that  chief  magistrate  under  whose  auspices  these  laws  were 
engendered.  The  paternity  of  such  laws  is  no  perplexing 
problem,  to  any  one  familiar  with  the  early  history  of  New 
England.  Puritanism  claims  to  have  inspired  freedom  into 
the  British  Constitution.  I  have  yet  to  be  taught,  that  we 
are  to  thank  it  for  any  which  it  has  breathed  into  our  own. 

I  regret  to  have  imposed  upon  me,  the  necessity  of  ming- 
ling political  with  ecclesiastical  considerations.  But  the 
semi-political  nature  of  the  case  before  me  requires  it.  It 
was  politics,  as  we  have  before  seen,  quite  as  much  or  more 
than  religion,  which  occasioned  the  movements  of  the  Puri- 
tans against  the  Church  of  England.  It  was  political  expe- 
diency by  which  they  justified  their  ecclesiastical  prejudices 
against  Baptists,  Quakers,  &c.,  &c.,  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  and  by  which  they  defended  their  terrific  laws 
against  them.  The  preambles  of  the  laws  of  1647  and  1700 
against  the  Papists,  refer  to  political  considerations  princi- 
pally or  only ;  and  most  certainly  the  objections  to  the  Que- 
bec Act  must  have  been  political,  and  only  so — for  what 
cared  the  Puritans  for  the  celebration  of  the  Mass,  where 
not  a  soul  of  them  would  ever  see  it  1 

Are  not  considerations  like  these  sufficient  warrant  for 
saying,  that  the  exclusion  of  Papists  from  toleration  in  the 
Charter  of  William  and  Mary  in  1691,  though  nominally 
the  work  of  England,  was  virtually  the  work  of  the  Puri- 
tans ?  They  were  insatiate  fault-finders  with  every  form  of 
government  and  of  religion,  but  their  own.     Time  was,  in- 

*  Holmes's  Annals, ii.  120,  and  note, 
t  Acts  of  Congress,  vol.  iv.  pp.  133,  202. 


346  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

deed,  when  to  them,  as  to  old  Daniel  Burgess,  "  a  thwack 
at  Popery"  was  the  best  of  all  cures  for  a  heart-burn.  By 
and  by,  however,  a  thwack  at  Protestant  Episcopacy  became 
as  good  if  not  a  better.  And  how  did  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land deport  herself  beneath  their  ungentle  smitings?  did  it 
bristle  and  mutter,  as  they  did  under  the  remonstrances  of 
King  Charles  by  his  Commissioners?     Let  us  see. 

To  say  nothing  of  the  Prayer  Book,  they  denounce  the 
very  Bible  of  the  nation.  And  what  then  ?  Why,  the  very 
monarch,  whose  phrase  "  No  bishop,  no  king,"  has  so  often 
been  quoted  against  him,  and  by  which  he  merely  meant, 
that  if  he  allowed  the  Government's  enemies  to  say  **  No 
bishop,"  they  would  forthwith  say  **  No  king  too" — even 
he  listens  to  them,  and  appoints  a  commission  to  meet  their 
wishes.*  This  is  a  fact  but  little  known,  and  still  less  al- 
luded to  ;  and  yet  it  is  distinctly  stated  in  the  Address  of 
the  Translators  to  the  reader  of  the  Bible  of  1611,  our 
present  translation  ;  where  the  Puritans  and  the  Hampton 
Court  Conference  are  alluded  to  by  name,  and  due  pains 
taken  to  show  how  much  was  conceded  "  to  satisfy  our 
scrupulous  brethren.""^  It  is  neither  impossible  nor  im- 
probable, that  this  fact,  so  decidedly  evidential  of  the  lib- 
erality of  Churchmen,  has  helped,  among  other  things,  to 
dismiss  that  Address  into  oblivion.  One  looks  for  it  in 
vain  in  the  volumes  of  an  association,  professing  to  give  us 
a  genuine  book — the  American  Bible  Society.  A  quarto 
Bible  of  this  Society  was  put  into  my  pulpit,  because  it  was 
cheap ;  but  I  paid  dear  for  it  one  day,  when  turning  to 
quote  from  it,  I  found  not  so  much  as  even  the  old  Dedica- 
tion suffered  to  remain. t 

'!«  See  Note  116. 

*  Fuller's  Ch.  [list.  iii.  182,227. 

t  So  the  anti-episcopal  punctuation  of  Matt.  xix.  28,  and  on  which 
hinges  a  controversy  about  "  regeneration,"  is  preferred  ;  and  this  in  di- 
rect violation  of  the  model  of  Ifill.  and  English  Bibles  generally. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  347 

Be  these  things,  however,  as  they  may,  it  is  not  in  rela- 
tion to  the  Bible  only,  that  Churchmen  manifested  a  dispo- 
sition to  conciliate.  And  if  all  the  Puritans  had  been  like 
Baxter  in  his  youth,  or  Lightfoot  in  old  age,  or  as  well- 
tempered  as  Dr.  Reynolds,  who  objected  to  the  phrase  in 
the  marriage-service,  "  With  my  body  I  thee  worship,"  and 
was  smiled  down  by  the  king,  who  said,  "  If  you  had  a 
good  wife  yourself,  you  would  think  all  the  worship  and 
honor  you  could  do  her  were  well  bestowed" — if  all  had 
been  like  these,  there  had  been  small  difficulty.  Still,  with 
dispositions  the  most  testy,  and  tongues  the  most  clamorous, 
the  Puritans  again  and  again  importuned  for  a  hearing  upon 
the  subject  of  liturgical  reform.  They  are  listened  to,  and 
answered.  To  their  tiresome  and  provoking  cavils,  it  is 
doubtless  owing,  that  some  acknowledged  blemishes  in  the 
Liturgy  of  the  Church  of  England  are  not  yet  obliterated.* 
The  Government  of  England  could  never  pacify  them;  and 
Mr.  Bancroft  has  characterized  them  truly,  when  he  says 
that  they  were  ''  the  harbingers  of  a  revolution. t  Do  what 
it  might,  say  what  it  would,  it  could  not  ingratiate  them. 
Like  the  children  in  the  market-place,  if  piped  unto,  they 
would  not  dance  ;  if  mourned  with,  they  would  not  lament. 
And  the  simple  secret  is,  they  wanted  not  reform  but  revo- 
lution.|  They  wanted  the  nation's  eminence,  the  nation's 
wealth,  the  nation's  strength  ;  and  as  Neal  himself  allows, 
"  they  were  dissatisfied  for  the  want  of  the  top-stone  of  the 
building,  church-power.^^ \\  It  suited  them  in  their  chagrin 
and  in  their  interests,  to  charge  the  Government  with  secret 
"  papistry."  Thus,  while  the  Pope  was  trying  to  destroy  it 
one  way,  they  were  trying  to  destroy  it  by  another;   and  so 

*  Compare  the  quotations  from  Bishop  Meade,  in  note  39. — "  They 
fled  me  so  from  argument  to  argument,"  &c.,  said  King  James. — See 
Cardvvell's  Conferences,  for  James's  letter,  p.  161.     Also  p.  314,  &c. 

t  Bancroft,  i.  284.  X  Churchman  Armed,  i.  493. 

§  Neal  iii.  364.     And  his  italics.     Quoted  by  Lathbury,  p.  329. 


348  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

"placed,  as  it  were,  between  the  upper  and  the  nether  mill- 
stone," there  was  good  hope  that  Protestant  Episcopacy 
would  be  ground  to  powder  !* 

Now  the  Government  knew  this,  and  realized  it  all. 
Archbishops  Parker,  and  Bancroft,  and  Laud,  saw  through 
it  with  half  an  eye  ;  as  has  been  stated  in  my  second  Letter. 
But  the  Government  also  knew,  that  as  the  passions  of  the 
populace  had  been  addressed,  effectually  too,  against  them- 
selves, the  only  method  left  them  was,  as  combatants  drawn 
into  battle,  to  meet  the  foe  on  ground  of  his  own  selection. 
They  did  so.  They  manifested  a  hostility,  all  of  which  was 
not  felt,  against  those  whose  covert  allies  they  were  calum- 
niously  pronounced  to  be.t  Shot  were  hurled  against  the 
Papists,  which,  but  for  the  taunts  of  revolutionary  Puritans, 
might  have  slept  uncast  to  this  passing  hour.  Perfect  free- 
dom in  religious  opinions  was  granted  to  Rhode  Island, 
agreeably  to  her  own  wish,  in  her  Charter  of  166*3. |  And 
the  same  freedom  would  have  been  granted  to  Massachu- 
setts, had  she  desired  it,  in  169L  But  no.  Massachusetts 
wanted  her  own  way  in  every  thing.  She  contended  stoutly 
for  such  a  trifle  as  the  pre-eminence  among  her  sister  colo- 
nies, in  all  the  acts  and  meetings  of  their  commissioners. § 
And  so  she  contended  for  as  much  of  her  habitual  exclu- 
siveness,  as  could  be  inserted  into  her  later  charter. ||  A 
charter,  without  some  intolerance,  would  have  been  like 
salt  that  had  lost  its  savor,  to  palates  for  which  a  certain 
kind  of  seasoning  had  become  quite  indispensable.  The 
later  charter,  accordingly,  had  an  infusion  of  the  requisite 
ingredient;  and  the  exigencies  of  the  times  made  it  brine 
of  smarting  severity  for  the  unhappy  Papist. 

*  Le  Bas's  Jewel,  pp.  184,  185.  t  Wynne's  America,  i.  237. 

X  Hazard,  ii.  613.  §  Ibid.  ii.  14,  99. 

II  She  would  receive  the  Scotch  and  sell  them  into  slavery  ;  (See 
Note  88  ;)  but  Irish  settlers  she  tried  lobar  out. — More's  Annals  of  Con- 
cord, pp.  7,  8.     Compare  Oldmixon's  Brit.  Erap.  in  America  i.  110. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  349 

The  sentence  of  utter  exclusion  against  Papists,  rein- 
forced by  a  law  of  perpetual  imprisonment  and  death,  was 
then,  I  contend,  virtually  of  Puritan  extraction  ;  for,  if  by 
combination,  (such  a  combination  as  they  charged  upon  the 
English  Government,)  the  Puritans  could  themselves  have 
acquired  ascendency  enough,  to  overturn  the  British  Con- 
stitution, they  would  have  endured  any  alliance  with  Popery, 
as  dissenters  and  radicals  are  doing  now.*  A  very  "  solemn 
League  and  Covenant,"  as  one  of  the  darkest  periods  of 
English  history  has  effectually  proved,  can  bring  strange 
materials  together.  If  Romanism  had  had  the  blind  might 
of  Samson  to  bow  the  pillars  of  the  Governmental  fabric, 
Puritanism,  as  the  little  boy  who  aided  the  Jewish  Hercules, 
would  have  led  her  to  the  point  d'appuis,  and  guided  her 
destructive  hands. 

Yes,  Puritanism  would  have  done,  in  ages  past,  what  Dis- 
sent is  ready  to  do,  and  striving  to  do,  in  this  current  hour. 
Dissent  would  blithesomely  overturn  a  Government,  which 
keeps  a  balance  in  a  hemisphere  ;  even  though  it  must  die 
in  the  entombment  of  its  accounted  foe.  And  die  it  will,  if 
it  succeed  in  bringing  England  to  the  desolation  of  an  agra- 
rian level.  Like  the  sinner  who  perishes  utterly  in  his  own 
corruption,!  it  will  be  crushed  in  the  ruin  it  will  have 
wrought.  It  is  easy  to  fire  a  train,  that  will  toss  rocks  about 
more  readily  than  did  the  fabled  Titans  ;  but  who  can  say 
to  it,  when  kindled,  '^  Hitherto  shalt  thou  come,  but  no 
further  V  *'  In  the  Grand  Rebellion,  all  the  sectaries 
combined  to  pull  down  the  Church  and  they  succeeded — but 
what  followed  ? — The  Roman  Catholics  vanished  before  the 
Presbyterians.  The  Presbyterians,  in  their  turn,  became  as 
odious  as  the  Church  had  been,  and  were  soon  overthrown 
and  oppressed  by  the  Independents ;  who,  again,  broke  up 
into  a  hundred  intolerant  and  fanatical  factions,  from  which 


British  Critic,  xvii.  194,  198.  t  2  Peter  ii.  12. 

16 


350  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

the  weary  and  woful  nation — Roman  Catholics,  Presbyteri- 
ans, Independents,  and  all,  were  glad  once  again  to  take 
refuge  under  the  protection  of  an  *  Establishment  in  Church 
and  State.'  "*  I  quote  such  testimony,  with  impartiality  ; 
for,  to  Establishments,  as  such,  I  am  no  friend.  I  feel  under 
no  obligation  to  approve  them  upon  principle,  and  can 
frankly  say,  I  love  them  not,  but  glory  in  the  Constitution  of 
my  country,  which  forbids  all  civil  trammels  upon  religion. 

That  the  fears  which  the  Puritans  professed  to  have  of 
the  terrible  machinations  of  the  Jesuits  were  just,  I  am  wil- 
ling to  allow,  (not  for  their  sincerity ;  since,  if  it  suited 
them,  they  could  plead  the  privileges  of  a  Bull  of  the  infa- 
mous Alexander  VI.,  when  it  allowed  them  to  open  their 
mouths  against  the  Church  of  England  ;)t  but  because 
those  fears  were  shared  by  all  the  Protestant  governments 
of  their  time  and  are  not  yet  lulled  to  sleep.  There  is  no 
system  that  has  loved,  that  still  loves  the  mistress  Diotrephes 
so  assiduously  courted,  (3  John  9,)  as  this  ;  which,  with  its 
vows  of  unlimited  obedience,  can  wield  all  its  energies  with 
consummate  despotism,  and,  in  its  recklessness  of  means, 
walk  over  the  bloody  and  smoking  ruins  of  a  nation  with 
unfaltering  serenity.  No  system  is  there,  at  whose  doors 
such  piles  of  sinful  consequences  lie ;  for  it  is  one,  which,  if 
there  be  a  Purgatory,  can  furnish  it  with  such  a  plenitude 
of  business  to  cleanse  itself,  as  to  let  the  rest  of  the  world 
go  free. 

Still,  upon  the  principle  that  even  the  *'  murderer  from 
the  beginning"  should  have  his  due,  one  could  wish  that 
Jesuit  missionaries  had  not  experienced  quite  such  caustic 
manipulation,  as  they  sometimes  have,  from  those  who  pro- 
fess to  be  their  superiors,  and,  indeed,  the  superiors  of  all 
men,  in  their   love  of  liberty  and  charity.     I  say  not  their 

♦  Quart.  Review,  No.  100,  p.  510,  Am.  Ed. 

t  Admitted  by  Neal,  i.  242,  243.     In  view  of  this,  the  Puritans 
ought  never  to  object  to  holy  orders,  even  if  they  do  come  through  Rome. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  351 

superiors  in  devotion ;  for,  whether  from  a  right  motive,  or 
a  wrong,  more  exemplary  instances  of  the  complete  surren- 
der of  men  to  the  requirements  of  their  calling,  than  have 
been  seen  in  Jesuit  missionaries,  are  not  furnished  by  hu- 
man history.  And  this,  too,  when  the  men  who  have  pre- 
sented these  instances,  have  not  been  the  ignorant,  the  low- 
born, or  the  low-bred,  among  their  fellows.  Sebastian 
Ralle,  or  Rasle,  who  spent  thirty-seven  years  of  his  life 
with  the  Indians,  and  was  missionary  at  Norridgewock,  in 
Maine,  is  styled  "  a  man  of  superior  sense,  and  profound 
learning,  and  particularly  skilled  in  Latin,  which  he  wrote 
with  classical  purity.'^*  He  compiled  a  dictionary  of  the 
Abnakis  language,  "  a  quarto  volume  of  above  five  hundred 
pages,"  which  was  seized  among  his  papers,  when  he  once 
escaped  from  those  musket-balls,  formerly  current  coin  in 
PuRiTAXiA  for  the  cheap  dispatch  of  bishops,  and  is  now 
preserved  in  the  library  of  Harvard  University.t  Chaumont 
toiled  among  the  Hurons  for  half  a  century.  He  composed 
a  grammar  of  the  Huron  tongue.  Venegas,  in  his  curious 
history  of  California,  shows  with  what  indefatigable  toil  his 
brethren  exerted  themselves,  in  one  of  the  remotest  quarters 
of  the  world.  Salva-Tierra,  "  the  apostle  of  California," 
would  have  been  *'  twice  a  saint,"  and  eclipsed  David  Brain- 
erd  himself,  had  he  but  accomplished,  as  a  Puritan,  what 
he  did  as  a  Jesuit. J  Bishop  Laval  was  a  sufficiently  good 
Papist ;  though  I  cannot  say  he  was  in  form  a  Jesuit,  as  I 
am  under  the  impression,  that  the  stringent  oath  of  a  Rom- 
ish bishop  to  the  Pope,  interferes  with  allegiance  to  the 
general  of  a  monastic  order.     Laval  was  the  first   bishop  of 

*  See  a  memoir  of  him,  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  ser.  viii.  290. — Com- 
pare also  Drake's  Book  of  the  Indians,  B.  iii.  pp.  127,  128,  edit.  9th. 
Drake  says  the  English  actually  scalped  the  missionary :  thus  proving 
themselves  savages  in  very  deed. 

t  Pickering  on  Indian  Orthography,  p,  40.  * 

t  Venegas's  California,  i.  219,  etc. 


352  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

Canada,  and  came  over  in  1659.  He  was  such  an  enemy 
to  alcohol,  and  such  a  devotee  to  cold  water,  that  I  doubt  if 
tavern  lectures  would  have  escaped  as  easily  under  his  ad- 
ministration, as  under  that  of  the  Puritans.  They  forbade 
tavern  lectures,  till  the  witching  hour  of  eleven  in  the  fore- 
noon had  passed.*  Laval,  I  fear,  would  have  prohibited 
them  totally;  and  would  have  made  the  grocers  do  long 
penance,  if  they  demanded  of  him,  (as  they  did  demand,  and 
obtain  too  of  the  Puritans,)  a  profit  of  more  than  one  third 
percent.,  on  **  cheese,  wine,  oil,  and  strong  water. "t — Mr. 
Bancroft  himself,  with  all  his  Puritan  proclivities,  seems 
quite  enamored  of  the  romance  in  a  Jesuit  missionary's 
life:  talks  poetically  about  "the  illustrious  triumvirate, 
Alloiiez,  Dablon,  and  Marquette ;"|  and  devotes  page  after 
page,  to  a  sort  of  novel-writing  about  them  and  their  con- 
temporaries. However,  so  imaginative  a  gentleman  may 
well  be  pardoned,  when  Golden,  a  person  of  very  different 
temperament,  does  not  hesitate  to  allow,  that  "  one  cannot 
but  admire  the  zeal,  courage,  and  resolution  of  these  Jesuits, 
that  would  adventure  to  live  among  Indians  at  war  with 
their  nation  ;  and  the  better  to  carry  their  purposes,  to  com- 
ply with  all  the  humors  and  manners  of  such  a  wild  people; 
so  as  not  to  be  distinguished  by  strangers  from  mere 
Indians."§ 

In  fine — to  go  on  quoting  ;  for  if  I  use  my  own  language 
here,  I  shall  infallibly  be  accused  of  being  secretly  a  Jesuit 
myself — says  Major  Stoddard,  who,  as  a  military  man,  would 
not  be  inclined  to  over-estimate  the  hum-drum  life  of  a  priest : 
**  Of  the  labors  of  these  missionaries  we  may  form  some 
judgment  from  the  accounts  they  have  left  us  of  their  travels. 

*  Fell's  Salem,  p.  61. 

t  Felt's  Salem,  p.  62. — Winthrcp  congratulates  Massachusetts  on 
having  wine  very  plentiful,  "  through  the  Lord's  blessing."  And  then 
calls  the  Virginia  clergy  a  set  of  drunkards  1 1 — Sav.  Wint.  ii.  22,  95. 

X  Bancroft,  iii.  152.  ^  Colden's  Five  Nations,  i,  60. 


> 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  353 

They  encountered  the  greatest  hardships,  and  frequently 
exposed  their  lives  to  the  merciless  tomahawks  of  the  sava- 
ges. In  propagating  their  religion,  they  braved  death  in 
ten  thousand  shapes ;  they  have  left  to  their  successors  in 
the  same  vineyard,  though  few  of  this  description  now 
remain,  examples  of  suffering  and  patience,  which  alone 
could  result  from  an  elevated  faith  and  a  well-grounded 
hope."*  Chateaubriand  may  of  course  be  suspected  of  no 
inconsiderable  partiality.  Still,  in  the  fourth  book  of  his 
"  Beauties  of  Christianity,"  he  has  given  instances,  that, 
aside  from  the  drapery  in  which  his  imagination  and 
eloquence  have  clothed  them,  can  sustain  his  eulogy  in  pro- 
nouncing them  a  display  of  "  miracles  of  the  arts,  of  laws,  of 
humanity  and  courage,  in  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe." 

Recalling  things  like  these,  and  pondering  on  them  as  a 
philanthropist,  without  regard  to  religious  differences,  one 
cannot  but  reflect  with  pain,  that  for  suspicions  wholly, 
(at  least  mostly,)  .£500  were  offered  for  Ralle  alive  or  dead, 
and  that  he  was  finally  murdered  and  mangled  by  those, 
whose  fathers  came  to  our  far-off  shores,  ostensibly  for  the 
same  kind  and  sacred  purpose  to  which  he  had  given  up 
his  comfort,  health  and  life,  viz.,  the  conversion  of  the 
savages. t  It  should  never  be  forgotten,  that  this  was  "  the 
principal  end"  of  the  settlement  of  Massachusetts,  by  the 
'*  free  profession"  of  its  earliest  inhabitants.  Notwithstand- 
ing, with  savages  only  for  associates  and  nurses,  Ralle  found 
himself  the  victim  of  sufferings  that  required  the  gentlest 
alleviations.  His  last  years  dragged  heavily  along,  amid 
debility  and  sickness ;  yet  he  never  left  his  post,  and  spent 
his  latest  strength  in  attempting  to  stop  an  effusion  of  blood, 
or   in   defence  of  his  fireside.     It  is  melancholy  to  think  of 

*  Stoddard's  Louisiana,  p.  315.     Compare  Wynne's  America,  i.  309, 
etc. 

t  Williamson's  Maine,  ii.  102. 


354  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

his  lonely  grave  and  shattered  chapel,  as  the  only  ruins  of 
an  extensive  mission ;  but  these  are  all  which  remained 
seventy  years  since,  and  the  vestiges  of  these  now,  perhaps, 
have  vanished.* 

Indeed,  the  Jesuit  missionaries,  at  the  lowest  estimate, 
often  deserve  our  pity  ;  and  when  we  see  what  a  monument 
of  philosophy  and  erudition  they  have  reared  for  themselves, 
in  their  Lettres  Edifiantes  et  Curieuses,f  we  must  respect 
their  labors  if  we  condemn  their  creed. '^^ 

In  connexion  with  such  matters,  Papists  will  probably 
think  I  ought  to  comment  severely  on  the  bearing  of  the 
Puritans  towards  them,  because  of  their  prior  and  superior 
love  of  human  rights  and  liberties,  and  their  embarking  as 
they  did  in  the  cause  of  our  memorable  Revolution.  But 
if  so,  I  must  disappoint  them.  Closer  examination  con- 
strains me  to  retract,  somewhat,  from  the  praise  once  be- 
stowed on  the  Baron  of  Baltimore,  and  the  early  Romish 
settlers  of  Maryland.  Lord  Baltimore  had  refused  the 
oaths  of  allegiance  and  supremacy,  tendered  him  in  the  Old 
Dominion.  ''  It  was  evident"  therefore,  says  Bancroft,! 
*'  that  Lord  Baltimore  could  never  hope  for  quiet,  in  any 
attempt  at  establishing  a  colony  within  the  jurisdiction  of 
Virginia."  The  papistical  principles  of  his  family,  thus 
proving  a  hinderance  at  the  outset,  as  indeed  they  did  long 
afterward,^  it  became  necessary  to  put  them  in  abeyance. 
I  am  induced  accordingly  to  believe,  that  surrounded  as 
they  were  by  jealous  and  stronger  settlements,  the  Papists 
became  satisfied  that  their  success  depended  upon  an  at- 

»^7  See  Note  117. 

*  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  ser.  ii.  231. 

t  An  edition  of  these,  seventy  years  ago,  amounted  to  thirty  volumes. 
Since,  I  suppose,  they  have  much  increased  ;  though  I  have  not  the 
means  at  hand  of  ascertaining.  See  Catalogue  of  the  Library  of  Harv. 
University,  i.  468.     Also  Watts'  Bibliotheca,  i.  420.  u. 

t  Bancroft,  i.  241.  §  Proud's  Pennsylvania,  i.  121. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  355 

tractive,  and,  to  them,  entirely  novel  plan.  So  they  placed 
in  the  background  the  natural  exclusivenessof  their  system, 
and  opened  their  doors,  as  David  did  *  when  overawed  by 
necessity,  to  whomsoever  would  enter. t  For  the  increase 
of  a  new  state,  which,  if  it  rose  at  all,  had  to  rise  in  the 
neighborhood  of  formidable  rivals,  must  depend  on  its  pos- 
session of  attractions  which  might  win  those,  who  hung 
loosely  on  the  skirts  of  its  superiors.  Moreover,  the  cele- 
brated act  of  1638-9,  which  gave  *'  Holy  Church  within 
this  province,"  **  all  her  rights,  liberties,  and  franchises, 
wholly  and  without  blemish,"  was  passed,  so  Chalmers  as- 
sures us,  because  "  of  a  laudable  jealousy  of  the  papal  juris- 
diction"j: — in  other  words,  to  keep  *'  Holy  Church"  abroad, 
from  overstepping,  as  she  was  wont  to  do,  the  modesty  of 
equal  rights  and  privileges;  and  to  let  "Holy  Church"  at 
home  know,  she  should  have  just  her  own,  and  nothing 
more.  In  addition  to  this,  a  contemporary  quoted  by  Dr. 
Hawks,  also  assures  us,  that  the  celebrated  act  of  toleration 
of  1649  was  passed  by  a  legislature,  in  which  the  Papists 
formed  but  one  part  out  of  several!  §  Mr.  Knowles,  there- 
fore, in  his  memoir  of  Roger  Williams,  is  justified  in  dis- 
puting the  alleged  priority  of  the  Papists  in  the  cause  of  re- 
ligious freedom,  on  this  ground,  rather  than  on  the  one  he 
contends  for  ;  since  on  that  they  can  answer  him  by  saying, 
that  Rhode  Island  did  not  tolerate  Papists  till  the  virtual 
independence  of  these  States,  i.  e.,  February,  1783.  I  al- 
lude here  to  a  matter,  about  which  there  has  been  no  little 
clangor  ;  but  the  discovery  of  the  Rhode  Island  act  of 
February,  1783,  by  Mr.  Howland,  settles  the  difficulty  at 
last.jl 

*  1  Sam.  xxii.  2. 

t  Even  Mr.  Walsh  says  Episcopalians  were  unavoidably  Xo\qv  ViitdL. 
Appeal,  p.  428.  X  Annals, p.  213. 

§  Leah  and  Rachell,  quoted  in  Hawks's  Maryland,  p.  35. 
II  See  Holmes's  Annals,  i.  336.  Walsh's  Appeal,  p.  427,  etc.  KnowW* 


356  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

And  as  to  the  hearty,  at  least  the  spontaneous,  devotion 
of  Romanists  in  the  doubtful  and  anxious  warfare  of  our 
American  patriots,  this  also  may,  I  hope,  be  questioned, 
without  sectarian  malevolence.  Boucher,  who  seems  to 
have  been  their  friend,  and  who  pleaded  nobly  and  fervently 
for  their  toleration,  in  an  hour  when  the  most  sagacious 
politicians  thought  it  not  advisable,  declares  that  they 
hesitated  not  a  little  ;  and  maintained  to  the  last  moment  a 
neutrality,  which  would  allow  them  to  join  a  victorious  party 
safely,  and  shelter  their  persons  and  opulence,  of  which  they 
had  no  small  share,  beneath  the  wingof  its  protection.  He 
declares,  too,  that  they  were  looked  at  askant  by  our  whigs  ; 
who  suspected  them  of  an  inward  proclivity  for  toryism,  and 
accounted  their  ostensible  perpendicularity  as  somewhat 
critical.*  Another  contemporary  also  says,  they  had  lost 
their  former  political  influence  in  the  State  ;t  which,  of 
course,  it  was  highly  important  to  regain.  Their  "  irreso- 
lution," according  to  Boucher,  *'  drew  down  on  them  many 
suspicions,  censures,  and  threats."     And   he  adds,  that  one 

Memoir  Rog.  Williams,  p.  321,  etc.  Verplanck's  Discourses,  p.  86.  Also 
Gammell's  Life  of  Williams,  Sparks'  Am.  Biog.  2d  ser.  iv.  209,  etc. — 
The  act  of  1783,  which  repeals  the  exception  against  the  Roman  Ca- 
tholics, may  be  found  in  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  ser.  v.  pp.  243,  244.  It  is 
surprising  that  Mr.  Gammell  should  not  have  .seen  it,  and  that  Mr. 
Sparks  should  allow  Mr.  Gammell  to  repeat  the  arguments  of  Mr. 
Walsh,  which  it  effectually  explodes.  It  may  not  be  amiss  to  add  here, 
that  the  settlement  of  this  controversy  reflects  most  favorably  upon  the 
accuracy  of  Mr.  Chalmers,  who,  in  his  Political  Annals,  was  the  first  to 
say  Rhode  Island  had  passed  a  law  refusing  toleration  to  Roman  Catho- 
lics. Chalmers  has  made  so  many  statements,  which  the  Puritans  dis- 
like, they  have  been  glad  to  lower  his  authority.  The  attack  upon  him 
has  only  redounded  to  his  honor.  His  assailants,  in  the  old  fashioned 
language  of  the  Prayer  Book,  have  fallen  themselves  into  the  destruction 
that  they  made  for  another. 

*  Boucher's  Discourses,  p.  242.  Boucher  was  familiar  with  both 
Virginia  and  Maryland,  before  the  Revolution.     Disc.  p.  xc.  Pref. 

t  Mr.  Surveyor  Eddis.     Letters,  p.  46. 


4 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS.  357 

object  of  his  own  plea  for  toleration  was,  actually,  **  to  save 
them  from  persecution  ;"  for  which  act  of  charity  he  was  no 
doubt  duly  honored  with  the  suspicion  of  being  himself  a 
Jesuit  in  disguise. 

*' At  length,"  he  continues,  *'  a  [Roman]  Catholic  gen- 
tleman of  good  abilities,  who  was  possessed  of  one  of  the 
first  fortunes  in  that  country,"  "  openly  espoused  the  cause 
of  Congress."  This  was  Mr.  Carroll ;  who,  it  would  seem, 
finding  at  length  when  the  combat  deepened,  that  he  and 
his  fellow-believers  had  but  the  two  alternatives,  of  confis- 
cation or  "  rebellion,"  abandoned  neutrality  and  sought 
alliance  with  those,  from  whom  danger  was  nearest.  When 
this  was  done — the  Rubicon  crossed — a  careful  manifesta- 
tion of  fealty  became  necessary,  to  wipe  away  the  stains 
which  had  been  attached  to  them.  A  part  of  this  manifes- 
tation might  have  been  the  appearance  of  Mr.  Carroll  upon 
the  floor  of  Congress;  since  he  was  the  leading  man  of  the 
Romanists  of  Maryland.  Boucher,  however,  does  not  hesi- 
tate to  say,  that  the  personal  ambition  of  Mr.  C.  had  a  part 
in  the  production  of  this  (as  matters  had  stood)  rather 
singular  result.  "  He  was  actuated,"  is  his  testimony,  "  as 
was  generally  thought,  solely  by  his  desire  to  become  a 
public  man  ;"  or,  as  I  may  say,  to  regain  that  political 
influence  for  his  friends,  which  Mr.  Eddis  declares  they 
had  lost. 

These  may  be  ungracious  facts  in  the  view  of  some;  but 
if  true,  we  have  a  right  to  know,  and  must  in  candor,  though 
with  regret,  admit  them.  That  there  is,  upon  the  lowest 
estimate,  ?i  verisimilitude  about  them  which  we  cannot  blink, 
is  clear.  Nor  must  it  be  forgotten,  that  they  are  given 
upon  the  authority  of  one,  who  was  even  a  phenomenon 
among  the  politicians  of  his  day,  for  his  liberal  opinions 
upon  that  long  litigated  and  agitating  topic — the  toleration 
or  relief  of  Roman  Catholics.  For  myself,  and  without  the 
fear  of  the   Inquisition   before  my  eyes,  I  avow  it  to  be  as 

16* 


358  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

difficult  for  me,  as  it  was  for  the  patriotic  Episcopalians, 
who  were  the  great  majority  in  Maryland  in  the  days  of 
'76,*  to  believe  thai  there  is  any  more  elective  affinity 
between  Popery  and  republicanism,  than  between  an  acid 
and  an  alkali.  True,  Popery  has  a  phase  for  every  quarter ^ 
like  the  moon  in  the  sky,  and  the  contrary  may  appear  to  be 
the  fact.  Popery  publishes  Bibles  in  this  country,  because 
she  cannot  help  herself  But  in  Austria  she  prohibits  even  a 
Hebrew  Bible,  to  a  passing  traveller.!  So  I  am  constrained 
to  believe,  that,  as  respects  their  genuine  dispositions.  Popery 
and  a  free  government  are  as  unlike  as  our  arctic  and  tempe- 
rate zones.  The  one  cannot  endure  the  climate  of  the  other, 
better  than  a  polar  bear  a  transportation  from  his  native 
latitude.  "Whether,"  says  the  British  Critic,  *' we  consult 
the  annals  of  experience,  or  the  oracles  of  reason — whether 
we  survey  the  present  or  the  past — we  gather  only  fresh  con- 
firmation of  our  belief,  that  republicanism  and  [Roman] 
Catholicism  cannot  long,  or  flourishingly,  or  comfortably, 
coexist.  J 

That  this  is  true,  is  evinced  by  what  some  may  think 
trifles  worthy  only  of  a  smile,  but  which  are  certainly  wor- 
thy one  serious  glance,  if  there  is  any  sense  in  the  old 
proverb,  that  straws  can  show  how  the  wind  is  setting.  It 
is  notorious,  that  Papists  do,  among  themselves,  assign  some 
of  their  clergy  titles,  and  render  them  a  homage — bending 
even  the  knee  to  them — which  never  existed  but  under 
their  system,  or  a  monarchy.  Their  bishops  are  freely 
addressed  as  "  My  lord  " — their  bishops'  houses,  though 
never  so  humble,  are  looked  upon  as  the  abodes  of  a  spir- 
itual  prince,  and   denominated  "palaces" — their   bishops' 

*  Eddis's  Letters,  p.  46. 

t  Church  of  Eng.  Quart.  Rev.  October,  1844,  p.  419.— Edward 
Leigh  said,  nearly  two  hundred  years  ago,  that  Popery  made  it  a  capital 
crime  to  read  the  Bible  in  Spain  and  Italy  ;  but  allowed  it  in  England  and 
France,  where  she  could  not  help  it. — Leigh's  Religion  and  Learning,  p. 
22.     London,  1656.  t  Brit.  Cril.  xvii.  198. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  359 

churches  are  called  ''  cathedrals."  In  the  Popish  Almanac, 
intended  most  probably  for  few  or  none  but  believing  optics, 
a  republican  eye  detects,  as  the  unpropitious  caption  of 
their  clerical  catalogue,  "THE  HIERARCHY  of  the 
UNITED  STATES."*  It  is  printed  here,  in  type  of  their  own 
chosen  size ;  and  I  cannot  but  request  a  moment's  attention 
to  its  supernal  phraseology.  It  would  appear  that  these  dig- 
nitaries are  indeed  magnates  of  the  "  Mother  of  us  all;"  for 
they  are  described  as  having  hierarchical  empire  over  our 
whole  Union. t  It  will  be  said,  perhaps,  this  is  but  a  title, 
and  may  be  but  a  convenient  abbreviation  for  "  The  hierar- 
chy of  the  Holy  Roman  Church  |  in   [not,  of]  the  United 

*  It  so  reads  in  the  Almanac  for  1835,  but  in  an  Almanac  for  1844 
I  cannot  find  it.  Once,  this  would  have  surprised  me,  in  a  Church  which 
is  infallibly  and  always  the  same.  But  since  I  have  discovered  changes 
in  the  Bible  even,  under  that  Church's  auspices,  the  thing  seems  quite 
natural. — As  to  changes  in  the  Bible,  let  the  following  facts  speak  for 
themselves.  There  is  a  technical  distinction  made  by  Papists,  between 
adoration  and  worship.  We  may  worship  images ;  but  we  may  adore 
God  only.  Now  the  Rheims  Testament  of  1582  reads  Hebrews  xi.  21, 
unflinchingly,  thus :  "  By  faith,  Jacob  dying,  blessed  every  one  of  the  sons 
of  Joseph ;  and  adored  the  top  of  his  rod."  But  the  Rheims  Testament 
of  1582,  republished  at  Philadelphia  in  1831,  and  under  all  possible  au- 
thority, reads  the  same  text  thus :  "  By  faith,  Jacob  when  he  was  dying 
blessed  each  of  the  sons  of  Joseph  ;  and  worshipped  the  top  of  his  rod." 
So  much  for  one  instance.  Enough  can  be^said  about  hundreds  more,  if 
it  is  wanted.  And  as  to  Latin  Vulgates,  sanctioned  by  Popes  themselves, 
Mr.  James  in  his  "  Corruptions"  says  the  differences  "  amount  to  some 
thousands."  See  new  edition  of  1843,  p.  195,  note — However,  all  this 
is,  I  suppose,  as  it  should  be.  It  is  but  a  legitimate  illustration  of  Dr. 
Moehler's  theory  of  "  development." 

t  The  later  Almanac  hardly  mends  the  matter.  It  reads  "  Diocesses 
of  the  United  States  :"  as  if  the  government  of  the  United  States  had 
dioceses ;  or  there  were  no  dioceses  but  their  own.  By  the  way,  in  a 
very,  very  small  matter.  Popery  is  here  inflexible.  It  spells  diocese  in 
the  old  way,  "  diocess."  No  development  for  orthography  yet,  I  sup- 
pose. 

I  I  say  "  Roman  Church,"  and  not  "  Roman  Catholic  Church  ,-"  for 


360  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

States."  It  were  little  to  be  cared  for  in  other  Almanacs; 
but  here  it  means  what  it  says.  This  is  the  legitimate  style 
pontifical  of  a  community,  which  absolutely  and  literally 
claims  the  entire  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  of  this  immense 
republican  soil — nay,  of  the  world  itself;  for  the  Pope  is 
Christ's  vicar  for  the  terraqueous  globe,  and  could  give  away 
continents  as  pertinently  as  ever.  And,  too,  it  is  the  style 
of  a  community,  one  of  whose  lordly  "  hierarchy  "  averred 
to  a  young  friend  of  mine,  susceptible  of  intimidation,  but 
now  safe  in  Paradise,  that  unless  a  man  believed  the  wafer 
and  wine  of  the  mass  were,  as  certainly  and  exactly,  the 
flesh  and  the  blood  of  his  Saviour,  as  were  the  body  which 
suffered  on  the  cross  and  the  blood  which  was  shed  from  it, 

**  HE  COULD  NOT  BE  SAVED  !" 

But  I  must  conclude.  Such  things  then  can  show,  that 
while  Popery,  after  its  own  fashion,  had  judgment  without 
mercy,  from  its  extreme  in  theory,  and  its  cousin-german  in 
temper,  Puritanism — and  that  while  that  judgment  was 
inflicted  by  the  same  pushing  and  elbowing  disposition, 
which  hustled  all  who  dare  tread  on  soil  of  which  it  claimed 
more  than  the  entire  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  viz.,  the 
entire  property — that  still,  the  votaries  of  Popery  were,  if 
any  are,  tolerably  fair  subjects  for  the  experiments  of  intole- 
rant selfishness.  Alas!  that  there  should  be  a  system,  in 
which  frail,  fallible  mortals  are  actors  and  umpires,  which 
claims  jurisdiction  over  the  living  and  the  dead,  through 
this  world,  and  into  that  which  is  to  come  !  And  yet  Pa- 
pists anathematize  us  all  without  exception,  who  question 
the  supremacy  of  a  single  bishop  over  the  faith  and  worship 
of  the  globe — doom  us  all,  unless  ''  invincible   ignorance" 

even  Pope  Pius  IV.'s  Creed  uses  this  appellation,  as  if  sufficient,  and  the 
other  involves  a  contradiction,  so  that  I  ordinarily  eschew  it.  The  Cath- 
olic Church  is  of  no  country.  It  is  neither  Roman,  nor  English,  nor 
American.  Its  limit  of  comprehension  is  the  world.  And  it  is  one  of 
the  grave  solecisms  of  Popery,  to  claim  it  as  if  it  belonged  to  Rome. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  361 

can  save  us,*  (a  hook  on  which  no  sure  hope  can  hang,)  to 
the  penal  fires  of  hell — will  not  grant  the  decencies  of  burial, 
to  our  poor  impassive  clay.  O,  if  the  Puritans  had  never 
been  severe  but  upon  such  unearthly  assumption,  such 
undying  hate,  it  would  have  been  grating  to  have  passed 
one  censure  on  them.  Sorry  indeed  am  I  to  assign  their 
proscription  of  those  who  proscribe  earth  and  heaven  to  us, 
to  the  same  dismal  temper,  which  made  them  similar  oppo- 
nents of  all  who  varied  from  that  stern  standard,  which  had 
the  opinion  of  Puritan  parsons  and  the  vote  of  Puritan 
legislatures  for  its  indestructible  foundation. 


LETTER  XVII. 

Agreeably  to  an  intimation  in  my  last  letter,  the  present 
one  will  notice*  the  bearings  of  the  Puritans  towards  the 
Presbyterians. 

*  The  bearings  of  the  Puritans  towards  the  Presbyte- 
rians !'  some,  at  least,  of  my  readers  will  exclaim.  *  Are 
not  the  parties  identically  the  same?  We  had  always  sup- 
posed there  was  no  difference  between  the  two;  and  that 
to  talk  of  one  as  arrayed  against  the  other,  was  like  talking 
of  Satan's  being  arrayed  against  himself.'     As  to  the  Satan- 

*  Tottie's  Sermons,  p.  338.  Leslie's  Works,  i.  500  ;  or  iii.  87. — 
Bramhall's  Works,  new  edit.  i.  198.  Milnefs  End  of  Controversy  ;  in 
the  conclusion.  Milner  lays  down  the  Popish  doctrine  on  this  subject 
hke  a  genuine  partisan.  Now  and  then,  however,  we  are  treated  more 
mercifully.  The  Rev.  James  Archer,  e.  g.  an  author  to  whom  Charles 
Butler,  Esq.,  the  opponent  of  Southey,  was  partial,  will  not  allow  the 
title  heretic  to  be  applied  to  us  indiscriminately.  See  his  Sermon  on 
Persecution,  page  11. 


362  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

ical  reference  in  this  observation,  a  Quaker,  or  a  Baptist, 
not  to  say  an  Episcopal  reader,  of  a/w// history  of  the  West- 
minster Assembly,  might  possibly  think  it  not  altogether 
inappropriate  to  either  side  ;  for  the  conflicts  which  that 
**  Most  Sacred  Assembly"*  witnessed,  often  wore  a  most 
unearthly  aspect.  And  it  may  be  affirmed,  as  an  unques- 
tionable fact,  that  Puritans  and  Presbyterians  have  not  long 
been  true  yoke-fellows,  any  where.  Their  opposition  began 
before  the  Assembly's  days,  and  has  not  ceased  still,  in  the 
view  of  those  who  understand  their  character  thoroughly. 

It  is  difficult  to  say,  in  precise  terms,  what  sort  of  mem- 
bership the  genuine  Presbyterians  held  in  the  Church  of 
England  ;  for  membership  they  unquestionably  did  have  in 
it,  and  in  greater  or  less  numbers,  for  no  inconsiderable 
period  of  time.  We  have  a  word  in  politics  which  describes 
their  position,  the  word  "  lobby-member  ;"  but  its  use  would 
be  esteemed  ungracious,  and  if  I  introduce  it,  I  must  be 
understood  as  doing  so  for  definition's  sake  alone.  Yet,  it 
comes  nearer  to  a  precise  description  of  their  position,  than 
any  other  at  my  command.  They  were  seeking  to  mould 
the  will  of  the  Legislators  in  spiritual  matters — were  off  and 
on — now  obsequious  in  the  hope  of  success,  and  now  testy 
and  rebellious  from  disappointment.  Still,  they  never  pre- 
sumed to  go  so  far  in  their  hostility  to  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, as  to  say  it  was  no  church  at  all. 

Not  so  was  it  with  the  Independents  or  Congregational- 
ists,  whom  I  regard  as  the  real  fathers  of  Puritanism,  of 
such  Puritanism,  at  least,  as  established  and  generated  itself 

*  Right  Reverend,  &c.,  are  horrible  misnomers,  when  applied  to 
Churchmen.  Yet  "  Most  Sacred"  was  not  thought  too  lofty  a  style  for 
anti-churchmen.  Collier,  viii.  257.  In  the  same  temper  Baxter,  in  that 
edition  of  his  Saints'  Rest,  published  in  Cromwell's  days,  said,  "  Parlia- 
ment of  Heaven"  for  "  Kingdom  of  Heaven,"  and  put  Brook,  Pym,  Sec. 
there.  But  he  afterwards  took  them  out  again  I — Long's  Review  of  Bax- 
ter's Life,  p.  41.  See  also  Jones  of  Nayland's  Works,  v.  63. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

in  New  England.  They  denounced  the  Church,  as  a  mere 
anti-Christian  hierarchy,  which  it  was  lawful  for  them,  nay,  a 
bounden  duty  for  them,  utterly  to  overturn.*  Presbyterians, 
however,  were  often  partial  conformists,  and  continued  to  be 
such  to  a  very  late  date.  Collier,  for  example,  tells  us  that 
in  Charles  the  Second's  time,  after  the  Act  of  Uniformity, 
even  their  ministers  did  not  hesitate,  when  they  had  finished 
their  sermons  to  their  own  congregations,  to  attend  at  the 
Established  Church,  and  commune  there  !  t  This  is  a  most 
remarkable  fact,  and  shows  that  many  of  them  viewed  their 
separation,  as  Wesley  did  his,  as  but  partial  or  temporary. 

But  the  out  and  out  Puritan,  the  descendant  of  Robert 
Brown,  called  the  Church  of  England,  Babylon,  Rome,  &c., 
&,c.  And  he  thought  the  doom  of  Babylon  in  the  Apoca- 
lypse,!  to  be  cast  like  a  great  millstone  into  the  sea,  and  to 
be  sunk  so  deep  as  to  be  found  no  more  at  all,  her  just  and 
appropriate  due.  And  such  were  the  Puritans  with  whom 
the  Independents,  or  Congregationalists,  of  New  England, 
the  rather  sympathized — after  the  grace  of  whose  fashion 
they  preferred  to  copy.§     They  professed,  it  is  quite  true, 

*  See  Ball's  answer  to  John  Canne,  edit.  1642,  Pt.  i.  p.  125,  Pt.  ii. 
4,  5.  Also  Bartlet,  who  quotes  ex  ahundanti  the  highest  Puritan  Inde- 
pendent authorities,  is  very  plain  in  his  declarations  of  the  anti-Christian- 
ism  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  admits  its  baptisms,  (mark  and  remark 
this,  my  fellow-churchmen,)  only  on  the  principle  of  the  validity  of  lay  bap- 
tism ! ! !— Bartlet's  Congregational  Way.  Lond.  1647,  pp.  104, 105, 119, 

etc, 

t  Collier,  ii.  89  ;  or  viii.460.— Lathbury,  pp.  355,  56. 

X  Rev.  xviii.  21. 

§  Even  John  Robinson,  be  it  remembered,  with  all  his  boasted  change 
for  the  better,  would  never  allow  commumon  with  the  Church  of  England. 
With  what  decency  then  can  the  Puritans  complain,  that  we  never  re- 
ceive the  Eucharisl  at  their  hands'? 

And  further,  (for  I  may  as  well  mention  it  here,  perhaps,  as  any  where,) 
this  is  a  particular  of  Brownistic  polity,  from  which  "  the  New  England  di- 
vines "  took  strict  care  not  to  depart.  It  may  be  questioned  whether,  in  tem- 
per, they  have  departed  from  it  stilU  That  they  adhered  to  RobinBon's  utter 


364  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

as  Higginson  and  his  companions  did,  not  to  adopt  the 
rough  language  of  separation,  "Farewell  Babylon,  farewell 
Rome,  &,c."  They  indited  a  most  deferential  and  affec- 
tionate epistle  from  the  Arabella,  addressed  to  *'  their  breth- 
ren in  and  of  the  Church  of  England."  But  it  is  an  adage, 
old  and  trite  enough  for  a  schoolboy,  that  actions  speak 
louder  than  words.  Their  actions,  as  Hutchinson  admits, 
(whom  I  have  already  quoted  on  this  matter,)  *'  left  no  room 
for  doubt,  after  they  arrived  in  America."*  Then  they 
soon  developed  their  inward  and  fond  conformity,  to  Brown's 
principles  and  platform. 

This,  indeed,  has  been  denied,  and  is  still  denied,  with 
stereotyped  formality.  But,  it  is  asserted,  and  just  as  stead- 
fastly, and  that  also  by  Presbyterian  authority.  Hethering- 
ton,  the  latest  Presbyterian  writer  upon  the  subject,  with 
whom  I  am  acquainted,  does  not  hesitate  to  declare,  that 
"  From  this  person  [Brown]  the  first  form  of  what  has 
since  been  termed  the  Independent  or  Congregational  sys- 
tem of  Church  government,  appears  to  have  had  its  origin  ; 
the  great  majority  of  the  Puritans  [i.  e.,  moderate  Puritans,] 

disallowance  of  the  Sacraments  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  considered 
worship  by  its  liturgical  forms  unlawful,  is  evident  from  their  Answers  to 
thirty-two  Questions,  &.c. ;  a  tract  which  will  be  alluded  to  before  this 
this  letter  is  done.  See  p.  28,  where  they  absolutely  bewail  their  ever 
having  had  any  thing  to  do  with  the  ordinances  and  rites  of  their  "  dear 
mother." — Can  the  posterity  of  these  people,  who  once  bewailed  having  had 
aught  to  do  with  the  Church  of  England,  and  who  still  think  that  Church 
nothing  but  a  stone-cold  and  stone-dead  exemplification  of  Christian- 
ity, murmur  with  the  smallest  propriety  if  we  let  their  ordinances  entirely 
alone  ?  The  Puritans  disallowed  the  Ordinations,  the  Sacraments,  and 
the  Liturgy,  of  the  Church  of  England.  Was  there  much  left  for  them 
to  disown  ]  And  now,  forsooth,  their  posterity  turn  round  and  talk  of 
the  exclusiveness  of  Episcopalians !  "  Faith,"  said  Richard  III.,  "some 
certain  dregs  of  «conscience  are  yet  within  me."  May  the  experience 
of  the  usurper  be  imparted  to  them,  in  their  consideration  of  Church- 
men ;  and  then  we  and  our  exclusiveness  can  henceforth  go  free. 
*  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  24,  25. 


I 

t 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  3^5 

either  retaining  their  connection  with  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, in  a  species  of  constrained  half-conformity,  or  associa- 
ting on  the  Presbyterian  model."*  And  he  goes  on  to  add, 
that  *'  Brown  not  only  renounced  communion  with  the 
Church  of  England,  but  also  with  all  others  of  the  reformed 
churches,  who  would  not  adopt  the  model  which  he  had 
constructed, "t  Now  it  is  in  this  respect  that  Ross,  another 
Presbyterian  writer,  says  the  Independents  of  New  England 
imitated  Brown,  as  has  been  shown  by  a  former  reference.^ 
And,  in  fact,  the  object  of  all  these  letters  is  but  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  same  proposition. 

Now  Ross  is  an  old  writer,  while  Hetherington  is  a  late 
one.  The  edition  of  Ross's  book,  from  which  I  quote,  is 
the  fifth  ;  and  it  bears  the  date  of  1675.  Of  Hetherington, 
I  quote  the  American  edition  of  1843.  I  could  go  higher, 
and  quote  the  Jus  Divinum  Regiminis  Ecclesiastici,  or,  the 
Divine  Right  of  Church  Government,  of  the  Presbyterians, 
of  which  the  second  edition  of  1647  is  before  me.§  But  it 
is  not  necessary  :  the  oldest  Presbyterian  writers  avowed 
and  maintained  the  Brunonian  paternity  of  Congregational- 
ism, as  well  as  Bishop  Hall,  or  an  Episcopalian  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  II    And,  from  them  onward,  down  to  our  own 

*  Hist.  West.  Assembly,  p.  46. 

f  How  different  the  temper  of  Dr.  Rainolds,  of  Hampton  Court 
memory.  He  asked  for  absolution  from  a  Churchman  on  his  dealh-bed, 
and  kissed  the  hand  of  him  who  pronounced  it ! — Fuller's  Ch.  Hist.  iii. 
231. 

t  Ross's  Hist,  all  Rel.  p.  390,  391. 

§  Also  the  Presbyterian  Jus  Divinum  Ministerii  Evangelici,  or,  Di- 
vine Right  of  the  Gospel  Ministry  ;  of  the  edition  of  1654.  Pref.  to 
Part  ii. 

II  The  plain-speaking  Mr.  Edwards  comes  out  with  all  his  strength 
upon  this  subject ;  for  he  is  provoked  by  the  Jesuitical  denials  of  the  In- 
dependents. He  says,  all  the  water  in  the  Thames  will  not  wash  away 
from  them  the  imputation  of  Brownism.  Antapologia,  p.  197  :  also,  pp. 
136,  and  296.  Comp.  Baillie's  Dissuasive,  pp.  102,  103,  etc.  Baillie's 
Anabaptists,  p.  54. 


366  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

times,  tlie  impressions  of  true  Presbyterians  have  remained 
unchanged,  respecting  a  point  which  Congregationalists 
never  allow,  but  with  the  most  parsimonious  reluctance.* 

It  may  be  expected  of  me,  however,  to  be  more  explicit 
in  my  proof  of  it.  Accordingly  I  am  willing  to  undertake 
for  some,  what  they  may  consider  better  proof  of  the  identity 
of  New  England  Puritanism,  and  Brunonian  Puritanism,  or 
Independency  ;  which  was  as  thoroughly  anti-Presbyterian,  as 
it  was  anti-Episcopalian.  This  proof  can  be  derived  from  the 
identity  of  their  principles.  And  there  are  four  principles,  not 
to  mention  more,  which  strongly  characterized  Independency 
even  under  Brown's  personal  auspices — which  characterized 
it  when  it  obtruded  its  unwelcome  presence  in  the  Westmin- 
ster Assembly,  and  which  continued  to  characterize  it  on 
American  shores,  whither  it  had  exiled  itself  to  enjoy  freedom 
and  supremacy.  These  principles  respect  the  following 
subjects,  viz.,  the  Church,  Ordination,  what  may  now  as  well 
be  called  Development  as  any  thing,  and  Intolerance.  It 
can  easily  be  shown,  how  Brownism  and  Independency 
differed  upon  these  topics  from  Presbyterianism  ;  and  a 
person  of  very  limited  acquaintance  with  modern  ecclesi- 
astical history,  can  determine  for  himself  as  I  proceed,  under 
my  four  particulars,  whether  the  Congregationalists  of  New 
England  have  not  proved  themselves  like  the  ancient  Brown- 
ists,  and  are  not,  so  far  as  "the  spirit  of  the  age"  will  ad- 
mit, very  like  them  still. 

I.  The  Church. 

Let  us  hear  Mr.  Hetherington's  testimony  as  to  the  dif- 
ference between  Independents  and  Presbyterians  concerning 
this  subject.  One  would  suppose,  that  a  right  view  of  the 
Church  as  a  whole,  as  an  institution,  was,  if  not  a  funda- 
mental, the   next   thing  to   it,    at    the   lowest    estimation. 

*  It  used  to  cost  a  flogging,  to  call  a  Massachusetts  Puritan  a  Brownist. 
If  the  hbel,  (libel  if  it  were,)  had  not  had  a  terrible  sting  in  it,  its  author 
would  have  escaped  the  lash. — Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  ser.  iii.  81. 


I 


REVIEW  OP  THE  PURITANS.  3^7 

Nevertheless,  he  positively  asserts,  that  **  The  point  on 
which  the  greatest  disagreement  existed,  vi^as  that  relating 
to  the  ideas  which  they  attached  to  the  term  Church."*  The 
Independents  held,  that  any  seven  persons,  professing  a 
belief  in  the  Christian  religion,  and  voluntarily  associating 
together,  were  competent  to  any  ecclesiastical  act  whatever. t 
They  could  elect  and  ordain  their  own  clergymen,  (a  point 
which,  for  distinctness'  sake,  will  come  up  separately,)  and 
perform  any  act  competent  to  be  performed  by  a  Synod  or  a 
General  Council ;  and  their  action  was  absolute  and  final. 
In  other  words,  these  seven  were  a  complete  ecclesiastical 
sovereignty. J  And  it  is  so  with  genuine  Congregationalism 
still;  unless  the  principle  is  admitted  in  a  yet  morelatitudi- 
narian  style,  if  I  am  not  misinformed,  three^^^  can  now  do 
all  which  seven  once  could;  so  that  upon  Congregational 
principles  any  three  Christians,  voluntarily  associating,  are 
an  ecclesiastical  corporation  which  knows  no  superior  be- 
neath the  sun.§  True,  such  a  corporation  hearkens  to  a 
council,  or  an  association,  or  a  consociation,  or  any  thing 
else — to  which  it  pleases.  But  all  which  it  does  in  this  way, 
is  the  condescension  of  majesty,  and  not  a  submission  to 
right. 

Now,  a  Presbyterian  idea  of  the  Church  is  so  different 
from    all  this,  that  Mr.   Hetherington  is  justified  fuHy  in 

,"8  See  Note  118. 

*  Hist.  West.  Ass.  165.  Compare  Jus  Div.  Regiminis  Ecclesiastic!. 
Pref.jpp.  xiii,  xiv. 

t   Walker's  Hist.  Independency,  Pt.  iii.  p.  23. 

X  See  P.  Nye,  on  the  oath  of  Supremacy,  &.e.,  vindicating  Dissenters. 
London,  reprinted  1683,  p.  41,  etc. 

§  "  In  whom  [Ministers  and  other  church  officers]  they  say  church 
power  is  only  executively,  (as  to  the  exercise  or  dispensation  ;)  but  it  is 
primarily  and  eminently,  in  that  Body  of  the  people,  never  so  small, 
which  is  so  combined  together." — Gauden's  Hieraspistes,  p.  98,  London, 
1653. 


368  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

stating,  that  between  it  and  the  idea  of  the  Independents, 
"the  greatest  disagreement"  existed.  The  Presbyterian 
idea  of  the  Church  differs  from  the  Episcopal  in  form,  rather 
than  essence;  as  the  very  title  of  the  theological  classics  of 
1647  and  1654  effectually  demonstrate.  "  Jus  Divinum 
Regiminis  Ecclesiastici,  or,  the  Divine  Right  of  Church 
Government,"  and  "  Jus  Divinum  Ministerii  Ecclesiastici, 
or,  the  Divine  Right  of  the  Gospel  Ministry,"  sound  so  much 
like  the  titles  of  genuine  church-books,  that  a  Churchman 
might  easily  mistake  them  for  one  written  by  Ap.  Laud,  in 
propria  persona.  Still  more  would  he  be  puzzled,  if  he 
turned  to  p.  264  of  the  first,  and  p.  U2  of  the  second  part,  of 
the  next,  and  found  *'  a  ministerial  succession"  vindicated, 
even  if  it  came  through  Rome  !  Or  looked  into  the 
Vindication,  sometimes  bf>und  up  with  the  first,  and  found 
Popish  baptism  pronounced  valid,  Timothy  and  Titus  pro- 
nounced apostles,  and  the  Eucharistic  wine  called  "  the  blood 
of  Christ  sacramental."*  Or,  turned  to  p.  23  of  the  first  part 
of  the  Min.  Ecc,  and  found  that  Baptism  *'  is  called  by  the 
Holy  Ghost,  a  saving  ordinance."  But,  most  of  all,  would 
the  current  of  discourse  gratify  him,  when  he  discovered 
all  matters  of  discipline,  all  canons,  decrees,  and  definitions 
of  faith,  committed  to  the  judicatories  of  the  Church,  and 
officers  not  manufactured  by  the  people.  Surely,  he  would 
exclaim,  *  The  Christians  who  made  this  book  differ  heaven- 
wide  from  new-light  Puritans,  and  from  the  Evangelical 
Congregationalists,  so  called,  of  our  own  times.     For  those 


»  See  Vindication,  &c.,  pp.  93, 143.  Hubbard's  N.  Eng.  143.  Pres- 
byterians of  the  present  day  are  wiser  than  their  forefathers,  for  they 
have  just  decreed  Romish  baptism  to  be  invalid.  They  are  wiser  too  than 
the  school  of  Richard  Baxter  Baxter  in  his  Reformed  Liturgy,  (no  ob- 
jection to  a  liturgy,  it  seems,  of  his  own  making,)  calls  the  elements  of  the 
Eucharist  "  no  common  bread  and  wine,  but  sacramentally  the  body  and 
blood  of  Christ."  He  also  calls  Baptism,  "  this  sacrament  of  regenera- 
tion."    Alas  for  Baxter  now  I 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  369 

new-lights  were,  (as  their  counterparts  still  are,)  so  devoted 
to  their  own  inventions,  in  every  particular,  that  they  pre- 
ferred singing  their  own  hymns,  to  singing  as  near  as  may 
be  the  language  of  inspiration  itself — a  translation  of  David's 
Psalms !' 

Now  it  is  most  remarkable,  how,  in  so  minute  a  matter 
as  this,  the  old  Puritan  spirit,  which  considers  itself  ^ar 
excellence  evangelical,  has  been  faithfully  perpetuated.  A 
passion  for  human  hymns,  in  opposition  to  divine  psalms, 
has  labored  to  foist  itself  into  other  communions,  so  that 
even  the  Episcopal  Church  in  this  country,  has  had  to  fortify 
herself  against  it,  by  drawing  up  a  rubric  requiring  God's 
own  language  to  be  sung  !  I  say  God's  own  language, 
meaning  of  course  a  translation  of  it ;  but  then  the  Bible 
itself,  that  every  body  save  a  scholar  uses,  is  nothing  more. 
As  if  it  would  seem,  there  must  of  course  be  an  opposition 
to  almost  every  thing  that  claimed  a  divine  right.  And  so 
also  it  appeared  to  the  Presbyterians  of  old.  A  Presbyterian 
of  the  days  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  distinctly  com- 
plains of  this  strange  Puritan  passion  for  hymns,  in  opposi- 
tion to  psalms — hymns,  he  adds,  "of  their  own  making."* 

Not  to  dwell  too  long  on  each  of  my  four  points,  let  us 
now  come  to  the  second. 

II. — Ordination. 

This  the  Presbyterian  believed,  (as  the  Churchman 
does,)  to  be  no  affair  of  the  people  ;  and  talked,  as  we  have 
seen,  of  a  "  ministerial  succession,"  out  of  which  he  was 
not  to  be  frightened  even  if  it  came  through  Rome. 

Here,  he  and  the  genuine  Puritan  separated  again,  and 
totally.  Such  a  Puritan  renounced  Episcopal  ordination, 
not  as  a  nullity  only,  but  as  a  sin.  I  need  not  go  over 
ground  traversed  in  my  eighth  letter;  but  it  may  be  well  to 

*  Gangraena,  Pt.  i.  p.  45.  However,  when  the  Puritans  could  sing 
psalms  under  their  own  auspices  they  did  so :  as  Sir  Edmund  Andros  dis- 
covered to  his  annovance. 


370  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

add,  that  this  renunciation  of  an  ordination  not  conferred 
by  the  people,  began  in  the  days  of  Queen  Elizabeth,*  and 
was  well  known  in  the  days  of  the  Commonwealth. f  It  was 
repeated  in  this  country,  and  habitually.  True,  the  Con- 
gregational laity  are  now  disfranchised  of  their  old  rights, 
because  a  lay  ordination  appears  undignified  :  it  comes  as  it 
were  from  the  shop,  or  the  farm,  and  clerical  self-conse- 
quence will  not  endure  it.  But  when  it  was  hr^i  forbidden ^ 
it  was  so  treated  by  a  fastidious  and  aristocratical  officer  of 
Harvard  University,  and  was  indignantly  protested  against  as 
a"  bill  of  exclusion."!  This  bold  step  was  taken  in  1696,  and 
was  infectious  enough,  notwithstanding  its  imitation  of  a  "  di- 
vine right"  practice,  to  create  and  transmit  a  new  custom. 
Dr.  Holmes,  in  his  Dudleian  Lecture  of  iSlO,  in  the  same 
town  of  Cambridge,  where  the  laity  were  first  thrust  away 
from  ordinations,  could  safely  enough  say,  that  ordination 
"  has  been  performed  by  apostles  ;  by  prophets  and  teach- 
ers;  by  evangelists;  and  by  elders  and  presbyters;  and  by 
none  others."^  Fortunately  Deacon  Gile,  who  denounced 
the  "  bill  of  exclusion"  of  1696,  had  taken  no  care  to  keep 
up  his  succession  ;  and  Dr.  Holmes's  dogma  was  as  safe  as 
one  of  the  definitions  of  Euclid. 

After  all,  however,  it  may  fairly  be  questioned,  whether 
at  the  present  day,  clerical  ordination  among  the  Congrega- 
tionalists  is  any  thing  more  than  an  affair  of  courtesy  or  of 
taste.  If  a  man  were  elected  a  minister  by  a  Congrega- 
tional Society,  if  any  two  or  three  of  the  so  called  church- 
members  imposed  hands  upon  him,  and  he  then  assumed 
all  a  Congregational  minister's  prerogatives,  I  could  make 
a  present  of  my  own  letters  of  orders  to  any   association 

*  Soames's  Elizabeth,  p.  255.     Note. — Lechford  in  his  Plaine  Deal- 
ing confirms  this.     Mass.  Hist,  Coll.  3d  ser.  iii   123. 
t  Baillie's  Letters,  (fee.  New  Edition,  ii.  348. 
X  Quincy's  Harv.  Univ.  i.  pp  89,  489. 
§  Holmes's  Dud.  Lect,  p.  7. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  371 

which  would  dare  to  pronounce  him  a  mere  layman,  and 
beg  to  have  them  issued  anew  by  such  resolute  authority.^ *^ 

III. — Development. 

By  this  I  mean  that  Independency  has  always  looked 
upon  itself,  as  (to  use  the  language  of  a  geologist)  in  a 
transition-state,  and  prepared  for  any  changes  whatsoever. ^20 
And  it  avowed  this  peculiarity  of  itself,  in  almost  the  very 
face  and  eyes  of  the  "  Most  Sacred  Assembly,"  in  its  noto- 
rious "  Apologeticall  Narration."  Its  disciples  wished  the 
purpose  of  never  making  present  judgment  and  practice  a 
binding  law  for  the  future,  enacted  as  the  most  sacred  of 
all  laws.*  This  is  evidently  the  notion  which  Robinson 
had  in  view,  in  his  farewell  address  to  the  Plymouth  Pil- 
grims, when  he  told  them  to  be  ready  for  any  novelties, 
since  God  had  yet  more  truth  to  break  forth  out  of  his  holy 
word. 

That  this  was  the  flickering  principle  or  policy  of  the 
early  Independents  is  incontestable  :t  and  that  it  was  acted 
upon,  and  acted  out,  in  New  England,  the  history  of  Unita- 
rianism  there  is  an  ample  voucher.  Nay,  that  Unitarianism 
is  its  legitimate  result,  has  been  contended  for  in  a  sermon 
by  Mr.  Charles  W.  Upham,  delivered  at  Salem,  Mass., 
November,  1826,  called  **  Principles  of  the  Reformation." 
Few  Unitarians  have  written  a  better  sustained  sermon 
than  this.  How  Calvinistic  Congregational ists  can  upbraid 
him,  or  his  sect,  for  their  position,  I  know  not.  They  are, 
as  he  proves  most  successfully,  but  carrying  out  the  es- 
tablished law  of  Independency — indeed  the  most  sacred  of 
its  laws.  And  Mr.  Upham  is  as  frank  as  he  is  ingenious. 
His  forefathers  were  Calvinists  ;  he  and  his  are  Socinians  ; 

"9  SeeNote_ll9.  120  See  Note  120. 

*  Hetherington,  p.  160.     Edwards'  Antapologia,  p.  85. 
t  Gauden's  Hieraspistes,  p.  452.     This  is  one  of  the  follies  Gauden 
condemns.     Walker's  Independency,  Ft.  iii.  p.  22. 


372  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

and  his  posterity  may  be — ^just  what  they  please.'"  Nay, 
if  they  come  to  conclusions  different  from  his  own,  or  from 
those  of  any  higher  predecessor,  he  solemnly  charges  '*  their 
contemporaries  not  to  reproach  them."   (Sermon,  p.  8.) 

Now  this  is  precisely  as  it  should  be.  Independency 
was  originally  and  professedly  a  Proteus,*  and  it  has  prac- 
tically proved  itself  one;  as  Mr.  Upham  earnestly  contends 
it  may  do,  without  fear  and  without  reproach.  Not  to  speak 
of  the  strides  which  a  portion  of  its  adherents  have  taken 
towards  Socinianism,  Humanitarianism,  Transcendentalism, 
and  I  fear  Pantheism,  [for  the  late  Prof.  Ware  had  to  preach 
a  sermon  before  Harvard  University,  to  prove  the  personality 
of  God  !]t  it  might  be  asked  what  are  the  remaining  and  the 
more  considerate  portions  doing  ?  Mr.  Newton's  speech, 
quoted  in  my  fifth  letter,  shows  that  the  Cambridge  Platform 
has  waxed  old,  and  is  ready  to  vanish  away.  Has  the  Say- 
brook  Platform  fared  better  ?  Would  the  majority  of  the 
Congregational  ministers  in  Connecticut  adopt  it   as  their 

'2'   See  Note  121, 

*  Baillie  speaks  decidedly  of  its  "  most  slie  and  cunning  way,"  and 
that  it  was  the  "  mother  and  true  fountaine  of  all  the  church-distractions" 
of  England.  Notwithstanding,  Baillie,  though  promoted  by  Charles  II. 
after  the  Restoration,  continued  a  sturdy  old  Presbyterian  to  the  last ; 
and  would  not  so  much  as  give  a  bishop  his  titles  by  courtesy. — Baillie's 
Letters,  &c.,7je«?  crf/f.  of  1841, 1842,  ii.  130,  216;  andiii.  487.— My  re- 
ferences to  Baillie's  Letters,  it  may  be  well  enough  to  say,  are  almost  all 
of  them  to  the  edition  of  1775.     I  had  not  the  new  in  time. 

t  This  was  delivered  September  23,  1S38  ;  and,  though  one  of  a 
course  of  sermons,  was  deemed  necessary  for  immediate  publication.  It 
might  well  fail  of  all  effect,  however,  for  it  admits  that  "  express  infidelity 
is  not  vice,"  and  "  atheism  is  not  immorality."  (See  p.  22.)  These  are 
strange  assertions  for  a  Christian  to  convert  infidels  and  atheists  with. 
They  remind  one  of  what  Bp.  Horsley  told  Dr.  Priestley,  that  his  way  of 
converting  unbelievers  resembled  that  of  the  Jesuit,  who  taught  his  sav- 
ages our  Saviour  was  a  great  cacique,  who  in  three  years  scalped  men, 
women,  and  children  without  number  ;  and  thereby  made  plenty  of 
converts  forthwith  !— See  Horsley's  Tracts,  3d  edit.  p.  298. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITAXS.  373 

creed  ?  Let  semi-pelagian  Taylorism  answer.  Or  let  an 
ex  animo  consent  to  the  language  of  the  consecrating  prayer 
of  our  Communion  Service,  which  calls  the  atonement  "  a 
full,  perfect,  and  sufficient  sacrifice,  oblation,  and  satis- 
faction, for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world" — be  applied  as  a 
test  to  candidates  for  Congregational  ordination;  and  the 
man  who  will  not  wince  under  it,  would  deserve  the  mark 
of  an  angel,  as  one  that  sighs  and  cries  for  the  abominations 
of  Jerusalem.* 

But  Presbyterianism,  when  genuine,  believes  in  no 
developments.  It  understands  not  the  Jesuitical  art  of 
adopting  a  creed  for  substance,  and  denying  any  of  its 
disagreeable  particulars.  Like  Episcopacy,  (see  the  Preface 
of  the  English  Prayer  Book  to  the  XXXIX  Articles,)  it 
would  have  its  adherent  submit  to  its  Confessions  of  Faith 
"  in  the  plain  and  full  meaning  thereof,"  and  would  not 
allow  him  to  "  put  his  own  sense  or  comment,  to  be  the 
meaning  of  the  Article,"  but  require  him  to  "  take  it  in 
the  literal  and  grammatical  sense." 

It  may  be  said,  indeed  it  is  said,  that  by  departing  from 
the  strictness  of  its  own  standards,  Presbyterianism  in  this 
country  has  riven  itself  in  twain.  But  that  only  convinces 
its  less  Puritanic  half,  (the  old  school  party,)  of  their  sad 
mistake  in  allowing  the  development  and  creed-depreciating 
tendency  of  Congregationalism  to  be  mingled  with  its  own 
elements,  till  they  produced  an  absolute  explosion.  It  is 
Puritanism  in  the  shape  of  Independency,  which  has  wrought 
mischief  in  t!ie  Presbyterian  General  Assembly  in  this 
country;  as  it  wrought  mischief  in  the  Assembly  at  West- 
minster, two  hundred  years  ago.  It  gave  that  Assembly 
the  severest  blow   it   received  from   any  hand  whatever.! — 

*  Ezekiel  ix.  4. 

t  Walker's  Independency,  Pt.  i.  p.  27. — Alton's  life  of  Henderson, 
pp.  526,  527.— Hunter's  Life  of  Heywood,  pp.  107,  108.— Edwards'  An- 
tapologia,  p.  269. 

17 


374  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

It  has  given  Presbyterianism  in  this  country  the  unkindest 
cut  of  all.  Many  weakly  and  ignorantly  suppose,  that 
Puritanism  and  Presbyterianism  are  identical.  They  have 
yet  to  learn,  and  perhaps  to  their  own  cost,  that  genuine 
Presbyterianism  has  not  had  a  deadlier  foe.  Nor  is  that 
foe  yet  put  effectually  at  a  distance,  by  geographical  divisions. 
He  has  left  a  sting  behind.  Already  in  the  old  school  party 
has  the  question  occasioned  fierce  debates,  whether  ruling 
elders  should  not  impose  hands  in  ordination.  Here  is  the 
virus  of  Independency,  creating  a  new  sore  spot — an  abscess 
will  be  the  consequence ;  and  Presbyterianism  will  have  to 
divide  again,  to  try  to  let  the  matter  out.  Alas,  it  has 
entered  its  protest  against  Puritanic  Independency  too  late ! 
The  law  of  change  with  which  this  system  started,  falls  in 
quite  too  harmoniously  with  "  the  spirit  of  the  age  ;"  and 
that  law  will  now  be  inflicted  on  Presbyterianism  without 
mercy,  till  it  is  shred  into  sectarian  patches. 

These  remarks  accord  too  well  with  my  fourth  topic,  not 
to  make  me  think  it  is  time  to  bring  that  up  formally.  I 
therefore  introduce  it. 

IV.  Intolerance. 

And  by  this  I  mean  Independency's  intolerance  towards 
Presbyterianism,  and  its  efforts  to  extinguish  it.  But  that 
idea  will,  to  many,  be  a  perfect  puzzle.  What !  Puritanism 
persecuting  Presbyterianism  ?  There  is  some  strange  mis- 
nomer here — this  language  is  a  mere  blind  paradox.  And 
yet  the  idea  conveyed  by  it  has  virtually  been  before  my 
readers,  in  remarks  under  the  topic  now  concluded  ;  and  if 
I  again  adduce  it,  I  do  so  but  to  impress  it,  if  possible,  more 
deeply,  knowing  how  some  will  revolt  at  it,  and  how  others 
try  to  sneer  it  off,  or  laugh  it  down.  But  the  provoking 
truth  is  necessary,  and  it  must  stand  out  in  all  its  plainness: 
for  its  ugliness  I  am  not  responsible.  Puritans  of  the 
straitest  sect,  then,  have  persecuted  Presbyterians  unmer- 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  375 

cifully  ;*  and  a  bitterer  feeling  has  existed  between  these 
parties,  than  between  Presbyterians  and  Churchmen.  This 
sort  of  Puritans  are  characterized  in  the  dedication  of 
King  James's  Bible,  as  "  self-conceited  brethren,  who  run 
their  own  ways,  and  give  liking  unto  nothing  but  what  is 
framed  by  themselves,  and  hammered  on  their  own  anvil." 
Presbyterians  found  them  such,  as  well  as  Churchmen ;  and 
now  for  the  proof  of  my   assertion. 

•  It  is  quite  true,  that  when  they  were  at  the  outset  of 
their  career,  the  Puritan  Independents  felt  weak,  and  tried 
to  gain  strength,  by  keeping  their  more  powerful  neighbors, 
the  Puritan  Presbyterians,  at  bay  with  the  catch-words, 
*'  toleration,"  and  "  liberty  to  tender  consciences."  Then 
they  complained  of  the  Presbyterians,  as  earnestly  as  Presby- 
terians ever  did  of  Prelatists.  Hear  the  lugubrious  wail  of 
Thomas  Goodwin,  one  of  the  most  celebrated  of  his  party, 
and,  in  Cromwell's  day.  President  of  Magdalen  Col- 
lege, Oxford. t  *'They  do  worse  than  all  this;  for  when 
they  have  joined  with  the  world,  they  make  use  of  worldly 
force  and  compulsion,  and  employ  and  call  in  aid  and 
strength  from  the  world,  whereby  to  compel  their  poor  Dis- 
senting Brethren  to  their  way."  The  term  ''  Dissenting 
Brethren,"  my  readers  should  understand,  was  a  term  which 
was  then  applied  censoriously,  by  the  Presbyterians  to  the 
Independents;  who  were  looked  upon,  we  shall  presently 
see,  as  schismatics.  Goodwin  has  much  more  to  the  same 
effect,  in  that  one  of  his  voluminous  treatises  quoted,  and 
which  is  necessarily  passed  by.  Suffice  it  to  say,  he  is  very 
severe,  and  tells  the  Presbyterians  that  they  have  less  forbear- 

*  Dissenter  Disarmed,  Ft.  i.  161.     London,  1681 . 

t  Compare  Johnson's  wail  of  "  so  many  [Presbyterian]  books,  to 
prove  the  Congregational  or  Independent  churches  to  be  the  sluice 
through  which  so  many  floods  of  error  flow  in." — Mass.  Coll.  2d  series, 
vii.  2. 


376  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

ance  for  the  Independents,  than  men  of  the  world  have  for 
one  another* 

But  how  was  it  when  the  wheel  of  fortune  rolled  over, 
and  the  lower  spoke  became  the  uppermost — when  Thomas 
Goodwin,  e.  g.,  was  established  as  Cromwell's  favorite,  and 
basked  in  the  sunshine  of  a  tyrant's  greatness? 

Now  we  can  hear  the  other  side,  and  let  them  speak. — 
''They  were  thus  led,"  says  Hetherington,  "to  advocate  a 
toleration  in  theory,  which  they  never  granted  when  their 
own  power  was  predominant,  as  in  New  England — and 
which,  it  may  be  added,  they  never  would  consent  to  grant 
to  the  Presbyterians ;  whom  they  would  not  admit  to  com- 
munion with  them,  unless  they  were  willing  to  abandon 
Presbyterianism  and  become  Congregationalists."t  "  A 
sect  had  lately  sprung  up,"  writes  Mr.  Tytler,  "  who  termed 
themselves  Independents.  They  held  the  Presbyterians  in 
as  great  abhorrence,  as  those  of  the  Church  of  England."^ 
And  now  for  a  wail  from  the  oppressed,  to  correspond  to 
Dr.  Goodwin's.  "The  Greek  word  for  schism,"  write  the 
Presbyterians  to  the  Independents,  under  the  sanction  of  a 
Provincial  Assembly,  "  signifies  rending,  and  sure  it  is  that 
you  rend  yourselves  from  us,  and  not  as  from  Churches  of  the 
same  rule,'^  but  as  Churches  differing  in  the  rule,  with  a 
dislike  of  us,  and  a  protestation  that  you  cannot  join  with 
us,  as  fixed  members,  without  sin."||  You  hear  us  preach 
not  as  persons  in  oflice,  but  as  gifted  men  only  ;  [Note 
this,  O  ye  Episcopal  bigots!]   and  some  of  you  refuse  to 

*  T.  Goodwin's  Works,  vol  iv.  Gov't  of  the  Church,  p.  406.  See 
also  Neal  referred  to  for  the  same  purpose,  by  Lathbury,  p.  195.  Lilly's 
Life  and  Times,  new  edit.  pp.  128,  135,  190. 

t  Hetherington,  p.  168. — Compare  the  Dissenter  Disarmed,  Pt.  ii. 
184,  185. 

t  Tytler's  Hist.  ii.  406.  §  These  Italics  are  not  mine. 

II  Baillie,  one  of  the  most  zealous  of  the  Presbyterians,  retorts  upon 
them  their  favorite  censure,  and  says  nobody  had  a  good  opinion  of  their 
piety. — Letters,  i.  438- 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  377 

hear  us  preach  at  all.  You  renounce  all  church-commu- 
nion with  us  as  members ;  and,  not  only  so,  but  you  invite 
our  people  from  us,  by  telling  them  that  they  cannot  con- 
tinue with  us  without  sin."*  Edwards,  in  his  celebrated 
Gangraena,  uses  even  stronger  language ;  and  shows  that 
the  Presbyterians  were  called  papistical  and  anti-christian, 
as  well  as  Episcopalians  !  This,  according  to  him,  is  one  of 
the  positions  of  the  uprising  faction,  which  was  trying  to 
tread  Presbyterianism  in  the  dust :  "  That  the  Presbytery 
and  the  Presbyteriall  Government  are  the  false  prophet,  and 
the  beast  spoken  of  in  the  Revelations.  Presbytery  is  a 
third  part  of  the  city  of  Rome ;  yea,  that  beast  in  Rev.  xi. 
that  ascends,  and  shall  kill  the  two  witnesses,  viz.,  the 
lNDEPENDENTs."t  In  this  Way,  by  assuming  to  themselves 
a  divine  mission,  and  representing  themselves  as  likely  to 
suffer  martyrdom,  for  their  fidelity  in  denouncing  papistic 
Presbyterianism,  the  Puritanic  Independents  calculated  upon 
inflaming  the  prejudices  and  passions  of  the  multitude. — 
And  they  succeeded.  The  sun  of  Presbyterianism  went 
down  in  clouds.  It  set  hopelessly.  It  has  never  risen  in 
brightness ;  for,  as  Dr.  Buchanan  assures  us,  all  the  old 
Presbyterian  societies  in  England  are  now  Socinian  without 
exception. I 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  Presbyterianism  sunk  with- 
out a  desperate  struggle.  It  did  not.  But  the  Independents 
secured  the  army,§  and,  by  the  *'  holy  text  of  pike  and 
gun,"  proved  their  doctrine  at  least  valiantly  and  prevailingly 
orthodox.  The  Presbyterians  were  peculiarly  unfortunate. 
Even  their  patriotism  was  held  cheap.  They  fomented  re- 
bellion against  the  King,  under  the  patronage  of  the  Scotch, 

*  Vindic.  Presbyt.  Government,  &c.,  1649,  pp.  130,  131.  Edwards' 
Antapologia,pp.  199,  200. 

t  Gangraena,  Pt.  i.  28.      t  Buchanan's  Researches,  11th  edit.  p.  120.        | 
§  Hetherington  calls  the  strife  between  the  Presbyterians  and  Indepen- 
dents, "a  conflict  of  principle  against  intrigue  and  power,"  p.  195. 


378  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

and  the  Solemn  League  and  Covenant.  And  when  the  In- 
dependents outgeneralled  them  by  intrigue,  and  the  King 
was  put  to  death,  they  tried  to  rouse  a  faint  cry  of  loyalty, 
by  professing  horror  at  the  execution.  But  their  sincerity 
was  distrusted  :  it  came  too  late,  and  it  availed  them  nothing. 
Dean  Swift  speaks  a  general  sentiment,  when  he  says,  "  As 
to  what  is  alleged,  that  some  of  the  Presbyterians  declared 
openly  against  the  King's  murder,  I  allow  it  to  be  true. 
But  from  what  motives  ?  No  other  can  possibly  be  assign- 
ed, than  perfect  spite,  rage,  and  envy,  to  find  themselves 
wormed  out  of  all  power,  by  a  new  infant  spawn  of  Inde- 
pendents, sprung  from  their  own  bowels."* 

All  this  goes  to  show,  and  does  show,  that  the  aliena- 
tion between  the  Presbyterians  and  the  Independents  be- 
came, at  last,  even  furiously  bitter.'^^  <<  Acerrima  ferme  prox- 
imorum  odia  sunt,"  says  the  philosophical  historian  of 
Rome  ;  and  they  exemplified  it  to  a  tittle.  Edwards,  the 
Presbyterian,  can  even  compliment  Churchmen  at  the  ex- 
pense of  Independents ;  while  they,  on  the  other  hand,  not 
only  loved  Churchmen,  if  not  Papists,  far  better  than  they 
did  the  Presbyterians,  but  preferred  before  them  even  the 
scouted  Anabaptist.t  The  climax  of  mutual  abuse  was 
reached,  by  calling  each  other  Papist  and  Jesuit :  the 
toughest  ecclesiastical  nicknames  of  that  day,  or  of  any 
other.  We  have  seen,  already,  how  Presbyterianism  was 
compared  to  the  Babylonish  adulteress  in  the  Revelations; 
and  I  may  now  add,  to  complete  the  picture,  that  the  Pres- 
byterians took  special  pains  to  show  the  similarity  between 
the  Puritan  Independent,  and  the  crafty,  reckless  Jesuit. 

^23  See  Note  122. 

*  Swift's  Presbyterian  plea  of  merit ;  or,  in  my  copy  of  his  Works, 
xiii.  112. — Compare  the  Dissenter  Disarmed,  Pt.  ii.  p.   106. 

t  Antapologia,  p.  279.  Gangraena,  Pt.  i.  44.  Vindic.  Pres.  Govt, 
p.  137.     Baillie's  Dissuasive,  p.  106. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  379 

Edwards  musters  and  marshals  seven  potent  reasons  to  es- 
tablish the  likeness  ;  and  not  content  with  that,  he  gives 
his  schismatical  neighbors  a  parting  lunge,  such  as  Ehud 
gave  Eglon,  and  says  they  outstrip  Machiavel  himself.* 

Such  complimenting  as  this,  will  no  doubt  be  excused, 
on  account  of  the  "  spirit  of  the  age  ;"  but  it  is  i/ct  believed 
all  pertinent  and  true,  when  applied  by  Presbyterians  or  In- 
dependents to  Episcopalians.  By  what  mysterious  revolu- 
tion has  it  suddenly  grown  false  and  meaningless,  when 
Presbyterians  and  Independents  apply  it  to  one  another  ?t 

And  now,  at  length,  may  I  not  say,  that  this  review  of 
some  of  the  chief  differences  between  Puritanic  Presbyterians, 
and  the  still  more  Puritanic  Independents — differences  in 
principle,  resulting  in  utter  alienation  in  point  of  fact — that 
this  review  excuses  my  going,  as  it  was  thought  might  be 
necessary,  into  a  regular  historical  sketch  of  the  controversy, 
between  these  ever-famous  dissentients  from  one  another  ?  I 
expected,  indeed,  to  have  to  trace  the  purer  Puritanism, 
from  its  rise  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  to  its  vigorous  matu- 
rity in  the  days  of  Cromwell,  when  virtually  it  wielded  a 
sceptre.  I  expected  to  have  to  present  a  view  of  the  caustic 
**  Apologeticall  Narration" — the  great  Congregational  man- 
ifesto—which Hetherington  styles  a  declaration  of  war  t — to 

*  Edwards'  Gangraena,Tt.  i.  40  ;  Pt.  iii.  150.— Judges,  iii.  21.  And 
a  New  Englander  thus  paid  him  back,  in  speaking  of  the'  Presbyterians, 

There  is  a  sett  of  Bishops  coming  next  behind, 
Will  ride  the  Devil  off  his  legs,  and  Weak  his  wind. 

t  See  Simple  Cobbler  of  Agawam,  p.  37.  Dissenter  Disarmed,  Pt.  i.  pp. 
162, 163.  Roger  Williams,  speaking  of  Rhode  Island's  comforts  in  1653, 
thus  chastises  both  Presbyterian  and  Independent.  "  We  have  not  felt 
the  new  claims  of  the  Presbyterian  tyrants,  nor  been  consumed  by  the 
over-zealous  fire  of  those,  called  godly  magistrates." — Mass.  H.  Coll,  2d 
ser.  ix.  195. 

X  Hetherington,  p.  163.  Baillie,  also,  speaks  of  it  in  similar  terms. 
See  his  Letters,  &c.,  i.  420,  421.  He  also  lets  out  an  amusing  piece  of 
secret  history.     The  same  day  the  Independents  offered  the  Narration, 


380  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

follow  out  the  Independents,  in  their  intrigues  with  the  Par- 
liament and  the  army  * — to  show,  too,  how  artfully  they 
pressed  talent,  as  well  as  power,  into  their  service  ;  inducing 
even  Milton  to  abuse  Presbyterians  with  all  his  might  t — [Is 
that,  Mr.  Bacon,  one  of  your  reasons  for  commending  his 
Puritanism  ?] — and  finally,  to  show  how  they  had  raised  up 
a  host  of  Presbyterian  authors,  such  as  Rutherford,  and  Case, 
and  Cawdrey,  and  Calamy,  and  Seaman,  and  Gataker,  and 
Palmer,  and  Edwards,  and  Baillie,  and  Love,  and  John  Vi- 
carSjf  and  Clement  Walker,  and  even  William  Prynne  and 
John  Bastwick,  after  prelacy  had  cut  their  ears  off; — who 
have  showered  on  Puritanism,  of  the  strictest  kind,  a  perfect 
tempest  of  hailstones. 

It  may  be,  that  I  shall  yet  have  to  avail  myself  of  these 
redoubtable  Presbyterian  scribes,  and  that  the  draught  of  Pu- 
ritanism, by  a  Presbyterian  graving-tool,  is  not  yet  sufficient- 
ly executed  in  alto  relievo.  Well,  if  so,  I  must  be  recon- 
ciled to  my  fate ;  but  for  the  present  shall  content  myself 
with  saying,  that  I  look  upon  two  in  the  above  list,  as  genuine 
Presbyterian  martyrs — martyrs  by  Puritan  hands  !  What, 
what,  do  you  say,  our  "  Dissenting  Brethren"  will  ask — do 
our  eyes  tell  true,  or  must  we  wipe  our  spectacles  ?  Have 
Puritans  ever  martyred  Presbyterians  ?  Yes,  I  do  verily  and 
conscientiously  believe  so.  Christopher  Love  was  a  Pres- 
byterian divine,  who  felt  some  compunction  when  he  saw 
Puritanism  bestriding  the  nation  like  a  Colossus.  He  en- 
deavored  to  have   the  old    government  restored,  and  was 

they  made  "  a  very  great  feast"  for  the  Presbyterians  ;  to  see  if  they  could 
not  get  them  to  wash  it  down.  But  it  was  a  complete  choke-pear:  so 
they  lost  their  labor,  wine,  money,  and  all. 

*  Hetherington,  118,  132. 

t  Brook's  Religious  Liberty,  i.  488.  Milton's  Poems.  Boston,  vol. 
ii.  342,  343.     Milton's  Prose  Works,  in  one  vol.  p.  103. 

X  Wood's  Ath.  Oxonienses,  ii.  153.  I  give  a  reference  to  Vicars,  as 
I  suppose  him  less  known  than  the  rest.  Five  of  ite  list  given,  Bartlet 
calls  dirt-throwers. — Cong.  Way,  p.  115. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  381 

made  a  head  shorter  for  it.*  Love  died,  proclaiming  himself 
a  martyr  with  his  latest  breath.t  Clement  Walker  wrote^'^^ 
the  sharpest  history  of  Puritanism,  which,  perhaps,  it  ever 
received.  It  cost  him  his  life.  He  was  thrown  into  a  dun- 
geon, and  left  to  die,  as  he  did  die,  a  lingering  death. J  And 
so  Puritanism,  which  spares  not  the  Churchman,  nor  the 
Quaker,  nor  the  Baptist,  nor  the  Papist,  nor  any  sectary 
from  itself  whatever,  spares  even  the  Presbyterian  with  n  o 
more  reluctance,  but  takes  his  very  blood,  if  necessary,  to 
glut  its  revenge  or  to  batten  its  ambition.  This  may  be 
called  strong  language;  but,  it  must  be  remembered,  that  it 
is  used  after  returning  from  Presbyterian  pages,  and  that  it 
would  have  been  stronger  still,  if  I  had  drank  more  deeply 
of  a  Presbyterian  spirit.  Let  these  two  sentences  of  Mr. 
Hetherington  be  my  attestation  :  "  From  that  time,  forward, 
the  contest  between  the  Independents  and  the  Presbyterians 
became  one  of  irreconcilable  rivalry  :  to  which  the  utter 
defeat  of  the  one  or  the  other,  was  the  only  possible  termi- 
nation. And  historical  truth  compels  us  to  say,  that,  as 
this  bitter  warfare  was  begun  by  the  Independents,  they 
are  justly  chargeable  with  all  the  consequences  of  the  fatal 
feud."§  Mr.  Hetherington  is  a  modern,  and  [his  language 
follows  that  of  Edwards  and  his  contemporaries,  hand 
passibus  ccquis.  Yet  the  words  "  rivalry,"  "  warfare,"  and 
*'  feud,"  fall  from  his  pen  as  naturally  as  life  ;  and  he  quali- 

'23  See  Note,  123. 

*  Calamy's  Baxter,  i.  66.  Brooks'  Religious  Liberty,  i.  498.  Of 
course  it  will  be  said  that  Love  died  for  his  treason,  and  not  for  his 
doctrine,  as  old  Anthony  Wood  remarked,  long  ago. — Oxonienses,  ii. 
137. 

t  Neal,  iv.  75. 

X  Wood's  Ath.  Oxonienses,  ii.  145.  Speaking  of  his  perishing  in  his 
dungeon,  Wood  says,  "He  gave  way  to  fate  there,  to  the  great  grief  of 
the  Presbyterian  parly." 

§  Hetherington,  pp.  157,  158, 


382  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

fies  them  with  the  austere  adjectives,  **  irreconcilable," 
"  bitter,"  and  **  fatal,"  without  the  shadow  of  a  compunc- 
tion. 

Let  this  suffice,  then,  to  disabuse  uninformed  minds,  about 
the  bearings  of  Puritanism  towards  Presbyterianism  in  Eng- 
land. Come  we  now  to  see,  in  a  shorter  compass,  if  possible, 
something  of  its  bearings  towards  it  on  these  shores,  peopled 
by  exiles  for  freedom. 

It  may  easily  be  supposed,  that  as  there  were  mixed  up 
among  the  elements  of  opposition  to  the  Establishment,  what 
may  be  called  high-church  and  low-church  Puritans,  that 
the  same  compound  might  be  found  among  the  early  emi- 
grants to  New  England.  Such  was  the  fact.  The  only 
difference  was,  that  the  low-church  Puritans,  or  the  Inde- 
pendents,* emigrated  first ;  as  the  high-church  Puritans,  or 
Prebyterians,  had  better  prospects  for  success,  as  matters  lay 
at  that  period,  and  could  better  afford  to  stay  at  home.  But 
then,  as  was  natural,  these  low-church  Puritans  in  New 
England,  finding  themselves  here  at  the  head  of  affairs,  (like 
a  low-churchman  when  made  a  bishop,)  turned  a  somerset, 
and  came  up  high-churchmen  of  the  tallest  sort.  Now  then, 
there  was  no  doctrine,  discipline,  or  worship,  that  was  right, 
that  could  possibly  be  right,  but  theirs.  Presbyterianism 
became,  forthwith,  a  rival  beneath  them,  struggling  upward 
for  their  ascendency ;  and  accordingly  it  must  be  frowned 
down.  It  was  so  treated,  at  a  very  early  date  in  the  history 
of  Massachusetts.  This  is  distinctly  the  testimony  of  Hutch- 
inson. "  Several  persons  who  came  from  England  in  1643, 
made  a  muster  to  set  up  Presbyterian  government,  under 
the  authority  of  the  Assembly  at  Westminster  ;  but  a  New 
England  assembly,  the  General  Court,  soon  put  them  to  the 

*  Or  "  Brownistical  Independents,"  as  Cotton  Mather  calls  them. 
So  here  is  one  of  themselves,  and  a  classic,  admitting  what  is  so  often 
and  so  testily  denied — the  connexion  between  Brownism  and  Congrega- 
tionalism.— Magnalia,  ii.  426. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  383 

rout."*  No  doubt  this  language  describes,  with  graphic 
exactness,  the  amount  of  charity  and  ceremony  with  which 
these  pioneers  of  Presbyterianism  were  greeted.  Congrega- 
tionalism, by  this  time,  had  made  up  its  mind  what  the 
development  of  itself^  for  the  latitude  of  Massachusetts,  was 
designed  to  be.  It  was  growing  warm  in  its  nest,  feeling 
domesticated  and  at  ease ;  and  therefore  pushed  Presbyteri- 
anism out  of  doors,  with  as  small  compunction  as  political 
partisans  hustle  one  another  out  of  office. t 

To  some  it  may  appear  singular,  that  this  disposition  to- 
wards Presbyterianism  did  not  appear  when  Roger  Williams 
avowed  his  suspicions  of  ministerial  caucuses,  several  years 
before.  Roger  was  afraid  they  would  end  in  presbyteries, 
and  denounced  them.  Still,  he  found  no  favor.  How  can 
these  things  be ?  Ah\  Roger  was  too  sincere  and  simple- 
hearted.  He  really  objected  to  clerical  assemblages,  on  the 
ground  of  principle.  But  such  assemblages,  if  they  could, 
as  they  did  do  and  were  designed  to  do,  upbuild  Indepen- 
dency in  Massachusetts,  and  give  it  there  supremacy,  were 
all  right  enough.  He  had  not  the  wit  to  understand  this  ; 
and  so,  anti-presbyterian  though  he  might  be,  he  was  ban- 
ished forever. 

Afterwards,  when  Congregationalism  was  the  Establish- 
ment of  Massachusetts,  he  who  disfavored  Presbyterianism 
was  just  the  agent  which  it  wanted,  and  was  enlisted  for  that 
warfare,  which  soon  ended  in  the  utter  *'  rout"  of  the  inter- 
lopers, who  talked  of  synods  and  ruling  elders,  and  a  lord- 
ship above  the  congregation,  to  which  there  might  be  an  ap- 
peal from  the  mischiefs  of  popular  votes 

*  Hutchinson,  i.  112,  Felt's  Salem,  pp.  160,  161.— They  made 
surer  work  than  their  friends  in  England,  who  had  left  Presbyterianism 
"  gasping."  They  killed  it  without  ceremony. — Dugdale,  p,  243.  Sav. 
Wint.  ii.  77,  note. 

t  "  In  all  New  England,"  says  Baillie,  in  April  1644,  '*  no  liberty  of 
Uving  for  a  Presbyterian." — Letters  and  Journals,  ii.  4. 


384  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

Yes,  Puritanism  drave  Presbyterianism  from'the  judg- 
ment-seat, as  recklessly  as  Gallic  did  the  Jews.  Nor  so 
only ;  but  when  remonstrances  came  over  from  England, 
from  its  old  friends  and  associates,  against  its  high-handed- 
ness in  setting  up  for  itself  as  supreme,  it  had  a  firm  and  a 
ready  answer.  Such  a  remonstrance  seems  to  have  come, 
in  the  name  of  '*  divers  ministers  in  England,"  and  in  par- 
ticular of  one  Master  Bernard,  "  minister  of  Batrombe."* 
It  came  in  the  shape  of  two-and-thirty  questions,  thirteen 
objections,  and  nine  positions  ;  a  somewhat  heavy  dose,  one 
might  suppose,  and  which  occasioned  a  few  fits  of  indiges- 
tion. Nevertheless  it  was  finally  all  got  through  with,  and 
due  return  made,  in  the  shape  of  three  pamphlets,  one 
for  each  batch  of  ingredients  making  the  entire  bolus,  and 
which  cover,  in  the  small  quarto  of  the  times,  1G2  well- 
stuffed  pages. 

Of  course  I  cannot  bestow  comments  on  the  fiftieth  part 
of  them.  Nor  is  it  needful.  It  is  quite  enough  if  I  can 
point  out  the  marks  of  exclusiveness  in  them,  and  show  that 
they  gave  semi-Puritan  brethren  in  England  no  quarter.  And 
this  can  be  done  in  a  very  brief  space.  *'  Christ,"  says 
the  first  pamphlet,  which  may  stand  as  a  specimen  for  the 
rest,  ''  hath  left  but  one  way  for  all  churches,  and  the  same 
to  be  observed  to  the  world's  end."  (p.  82  )  "  And  as  for 
acknowledging  a  company  to  be  a  sister  church,  that  shall 
set  up  and  practice  another  form  of  church-discipline,  beinor 
otherwise  in  some  measure  as  you  say  approvable,  we  con- 
ceive the  company  that  shall  so  do  shall  not  be  approvable 
therein.!     For  the  discipline  appointed  by  Jesus  Christ  for 

*  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  ser.  ix.  16,  note.  Or,  Richard  Bernard,  Rec- 
tor of  Batcomb  ;  see  Wood's  Ath.  Oxon.  11.  689. 

t  This  and  the  rest  compares  with  the  Apologetical  Narration, 
which  in  words  acknowledged  the  Presbytertan  Church  of  England  as  a 
true  church  ;  and  for  the  insincerity  of  which  words,  Mr.  Edwards,  the 
Presbyterian  scourged  it  sorely. — Antapologia,  p.  44,  etc. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  385 

his  churches,  is  not  arbitrary,  that  one  church  may  set  up 
and  practice  one  form,  and  another  another  form,  as  each 
one  shall  please;  but  is  one  and  the  same  for  all  churches." 
"  Again,  if  that  discipline  which  we  here  practice,  be,  (as 
we  are  persuaded  of  it,)  the  same  which  Christ  hath  appoint- 
ed, and  therefore  unalterable,  we  see  not  how  another  can 
be  lawful."  "  We  think  if  you  were  here,  we  should  gladly 
accept  of  you  and  your  people  as  a  sister  church,  and  that 
you  would  do  the  like  to  ours ;  and  yet  not  when  you  should 
set  up  and  practice  one  form  of  church  discipline,  and  we 
another."  (pp.  83,84.)* 

This  language,  which  was  used  in  1639  and  1640,  part 
of  it  sanctioned  directly  by  Hugh  Peters,  (whom  Edwards 
calls  "  the  Vicar  General  and  Metropolitan  of  the  Indepen- 
dents both  in  New  and  Old  England,"!)  and  all  of  it  uttered, 
no  doubt,  under  the  nod  of  Master  Cotton,  told  Presbyte- 
rians, in  terms  sufficiently  plain,  what  they  were  to  expect, 
if  they  ventured  to  descend  upon  the  coasts  of  New  Eng- 
land. There  was  but  one  right  way  of  church  discipline. 
That  right  way  was  already  there  ;  and  no  other  must  intrude 
itself,  but  at  the  hazard  of  stern  expulsion.  Nevertheless, 
Presbyterianism  growing  stronger  and  more  confident  in  Eng 
land,  in  1643,  when  the  "  Most  Sacred  Assembly,"  (that  "  Par- 
liament of  Heaven"  below,)  began  its  sessions,  the  attempt 
was  actually  made.  But  Congregationalism  was  as  good  as 
its  word  of  warning.     Its  rival  was  routed  from  the  land.J 

Nor  did  that  satisfy.  Having  received  an  intrusive  visit 
from  Presbyterianism,  the  Congregationalists  of  New  Eng 

*  Here  is  the  Divine  right  system, plain  as  noonday.  Yet  Congrega- 
tionalists of  the  present  age  give  it  all  up. — Congregational  Catechism, 
p.  82. — But  if  they  have  no  Divine  right  to  stay  where  they  are — then 
why  stay  there  1 

t  Gangraena,  Pt.  iii.  p.  50. 

X  Mr.  Savage  is  candid  enough  to  admit,  that  Presbyterianism  was 
"at  least  as  offensive"  to  the  New  England  Puritans  as  Episcopacy. 
Sav.  Wint.  ii.  77,  Note. 


3-^0  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

land  thought  themselves  authorized,  agreeably  to  that  plea- 
sant law,  Lex  Talionis,  to  return  the  call.  And  they  resolv- 
ed to  do  so.  Accordingly  we  find  Master  Cotton,  in  1645, 
uttering  his  system  of  ohurch-poiity,  and  sending  it  over  to 
London  to  be  printed  there,  for  the  benefit  of  Independency, 
and  the  subversion,  in  due  time,  of  Presbyterianism.*  This 
may  seem  a  somewhat  hazardous  declaration  ;  but  I  do  not 
fear  to  make  it,  with  the  Preface  to  Cotton's  book  now  open 
before  me,  and  which  was  written  by  some  of  the  Indepen- 
dent party  in  England.  This  preface  shows,  how  well  the 
Independents  understood  polemical  tactics.  It  alludes  to  no 
less  than  seven  successive  publications,  aimed  to  insinuate 
their  views  into  the  minds  of  the  community;  of  which 
Cotton's,  the  last,  contains  "  a  fuller  declaration  of  all  our 
way."  That  is,  after  having  given  you  leaves  and  buds, 
we  here  give  you  the  expanded  blossom.  And  the  Preface, 
(hardly  by  intention,  but  to  make  an  impression  against  the 
Presbyterians,  who  had  very  foolishly  attempted  to  control 
the  press  by  a  censorship,)  lets  out  even  more  truth  than  this. 
It  absolutely  admits,  that  no  sort  of  toil  or  chicanery  were 
spared,  to  hurry  these  publications  through  the  religious  cor- 
don sanitaire,  by  which  Presbyterianism  had  surrounded 
itself.  "  Yet,"  it  says,  "  with  much  sweat  and  wiles,  some 
messengers  have  got  through  that  Court  of  Guard. "t 

*  "  The  Way  of  the  Churches  of  Christ  in  New  England,"  etc. 
London,  1645,  pp.  116,  quarto.  New  England  kept  Old  England  well 
supplied  with  her  wares.  She  sent  over  Hugh  Peters,  Hibbins,  and 
Weld,  or  Wells,  in  1641,  (Chalmers'  Annals,  172  :)  and  the  Brownists' 
Conventicle,  p.  5,  published  the  same  year,  speaks  of  Samuel  Eaton  and 
others,  as  about  as  profitable  an  importation.  Weld,  or  Wells,  is  the  man 
who  went  to  discomfort  Ap.  Laud  in  his  imprisonment. — Laud's  Troubles, 
pp.  213,  214. 

t  Alluding  to  a  Presbyterian  censorship  of  the  press.  This  was  a 
terrible  thing  for  Laud  to  establish.  Yet  the  Presbyterians  soon  had 
one  themselves  ;  and,  by  and  by,  the  Puritans  in  New  England  followed 
suit.     Then,  suddenly,  it  became  all  right. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  337 

Altogether,  the  book  and  its  preface  is  a  most  precious 
specimen  of  the  temper  of  the  times.  Here  is  New  England 
Puritanism,  goaded  itself  a  year  or  two  before  by  Presbyte- 
rianism,  now  attempting  retaliation,  or  self-defence,  some  no 
doubt  will  call  it — i.  e.  upon  the  principles  of  the  Romans, 
who  drove  away  Hannibal  by  attacking  Carthage.  And 
here  is  the  same  system  in  England,  coolly  admitting  that 
no  labor  or  trickery  was  esteemed  a  sacrifice,  or  an  immo- 
rality, so  that  this  scheme  of  retaliation  might  be  carried 
into  effect,  and  Presbyt^rianism  be  worn  out  and  trodden 
down,  by  one  squadron  after  another  of  assailants. 

Still,  with  such  plain  authorities  before  me,  many,  proba- 
bly, will  call  all  this  a  huge  extravagance,  and  say  that  Puritan- 
ism in  the  shapeof  Independency,  never  did  have,  and  never 
could  have  had,  that  intense  hatred  of  Presbyterianism, 
which  these  statements  ascribe  to  it.  To  such,  I  say,  there 
is  proof  that  the  same  hatred  was  even  perpetuated  ;  and,  too, 
in  an  age  when  toleration  was  universal,  appears  to  have 
lost  not  one  atom  of  its  sharpness.  And  the  proof  is  at  hand. 
I  quote  a  book,  the^rs^  edition  of  which  appeared  so  late 
as  1778,  and  which  was  so  unboundedly  popular  with  English 
Dissenters,  that  it  was  endorsed  by  a  synod,  and  ran  through 
Jive  editions  in  four  years.  The  quotation  is  supplied  me 
by  the  "  Churchman  Armed."  "  Popery,"  says  the  great 
oracle  of  modern  non-conformity,  "  is  the  consummation  of 
religious  tyranny,  and  Presbyterianism  a  weak  degree  of  it. 
But  the  latter  [Presbyterianism]  has  in  it  the  essence  of  the 
former  [Popery],  and  differs  from  it  [Presbyterianism  differs 
from  Popery]  only  as  a  kept  mistress  differs  from  a  street- 
walking  prostitute,  or  as  a  musket  differs  from  a  cannon."* 
The  coarseness  and  virulence  of  this  language  are  not  sur- 
passed by  Hugh  Peters,  or  Peter  Sterry.t     And  yet,  this  is 

*  Churchman  Armed,  i.  445. 

t  See  Baillie's  opinion  of  Peters,   Sterry,   &.c. — Letters,   &c.,  new 
edit.  iii.  443. 


388  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

a  tirade  against  Presbyterianism,  perfectly  lawful,  even  in 
our  day,  for  Puritanism  to  give  vent  to.  Alas,  if  these  are 
the  relics  of  its  spleen  against  its  ancient  enemy,  how  relent- 
less must  its  opposition  have  been,  in  the  days  of  fresher  and 
more  open  strife ! 

Such,  then,  were  the  bearings  of  Puritanism  towards 
Presbyterianism,  when  they  came  in  contact  on  American 
soil.  It  would  not  be  difficult,  though  it  might  be  tedious, 
to  trace  the  history  of  them  in  detail,  in  after  years.  Proba- 
bly this  will  not  be  expected ;  and  ^otiticB,  after  so  fair  a 
development  at  the  outset,  will  be  deemed  sufficient. 

I  find,  then,  that  Thomas  Hooker  and  others  labored 
hard  to  counteract  Presbyterianism,  as  well  as  Cotton  ;* 
and  that  Shepard,  who  complained  of  Ap.  Laud's  "extreme 
malice  and  secret  venom,"  was  himself  complained  of  by 
an  English  Presbyterian,  as  striving  to  infuse  his  own  malice 
and  venom,  upon  the  subject  of  persecution,  into  the  West- 
minster Assembly. t  I  find,  as  already  stated,  (but  the  fact 
is  too  important  to  leave  out  of  this  series,)  that  the  General 
Court  of  Massachusetts  carried  on  the  same  vile  game,  by 
sending  three  agents  to  England,  in  1641,  viz.,  Hibbins, 
Weld,  and  Hugh  Peters  ;  whose  mission  was  "  to  promote 
the  interest  of  reformation,  by  stirring  up  the  war,  and 
driving  it  on."|  I  find  Cotton  Mather  himself,  putting 
down  among  his  Ecdesiarum  Prcelia,  contests,  and  fierce 
ones,  between  those  inclined  to  Presbyterianism  and  those 
inclined  to  Independency. §  True,  Mr.  Noah  Hobart,  in 
his  controversy  with  Mr.  Beach  the  Episcopalian,  denies 
this  fact;!!  and,  what  is  not  a  little  singular,  on  Mather's 
own  authority.     Leaving  Mather  out  of  the  account,  (since 

*  Sav.  Winthrop,  ii.  248.     Felt's  Salem,  p.  173. 
t  Edwards'  Gangraena,  Ft.  i.  pp.  9,  10. 

X  Chalmer's  Revolt  of  the  Colonies,  i.  84.  Chalmers'  Annals,  p.  172. 
Sav.  Wint.  ii.  25,  212.     Hutch.  Hist.  i.  95. 

§  Magnalia,  ii.  426.  ||  Hobart's  Sec.  Address,  p.  96. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  3^9 

Mr.  Savage  will  not  trust  him  freely,)*  other  authorities  are 
at  hand,  to  set  at  naught  an  assertion,  which  Hobart's  pride 
provoked  him  to  make,  and  his  bigotry  to  think  true.t  But 
to  let  such  contradictions  pass,  I  find  Mather  quoting  his 
father,  and  his  father  quoting  President  Oakes,  (all  showing 
the  true  succession,)  to  prove  that  for  Independents  to  adopt 
Presbyterianism,  would  be  a  "  sad  issue,"  nay,  no  less  than 
sad  degeneracy. "I  I  find  the  same  author  vituperating 
two  of  the  ablest  Presbyterian  writers  against  Puritan 
Independency,  most  cordially — calling  one  a  scandalous 
inflicter  of  most  horrid  injuries,  and  the  other  a  most  un- 
christian and  bespattering  reviler.§  I  find  Peter  Hobart, 
(the  ancestor  of  John  Henry  Hobart,  dreaded  for  that  de- 
testation of  Puritanical  tyranny  in  the  brethren,  which 
finally  developed  itself  in  the  churchmanship  of  his  descend- 
ant,) prohibited  even  from  preaching,  where  his  plainness 
might  expose  some  of  the  weak  points  of  Independency.  || 
I  find  lay-ordination,  or  the  preaching  of  "  gifted  brethren," 
without  any  ordination  whatever,  encouraged — all  of  which 
is  censured  severely  in  the  Presbyterian  classics.  Jus 
Divinum  Regiminis  ecclesiastici,  and  Jus  Divinum  Min- 
isterii  ecclesiastici.  I  find  men  who  appealed  to  a  Pu- 
ritan legislature,  in  behalf  of  Presbyterians  in  1646,  meet- 
ing with  a  most  summary  denial,  and  made  to  smart 
with  fines.  I  find  the  Presbyterian  Huguenots,  forbidden 
the  privilege  of  erecting  a  house  of  public  worship  in  the 
city  of  Boston.^  I  find  Dr.  Colman's  society,  (after  the 
classic  style  already  alluded  to,  imitating  Peters  and  Sterry,) 
called  "  a  Presbyterian  brat  ;"**  though  it  is  believed  that 

*  Sav.  Wint.  ii.  231. 

t  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  ser.  ix.48,  2d  ser.  iv.  118-120. 

I  Magnalia,ii.  64,  65.  §  Ibid.  i.  234,4,5. 

II  Tudor's  Otis,  p.  497.  Young's  Chronicles,  p.  402.  Lincoln's 
Ilingham,  p.  79.  IT  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  ser.  ii.  63. 

**  Colman  had  to  go  to  England  for  Presbyterian  orders  ;  as  it  was 
feared  the  Bostonian  Puritans  would  ojfjiose  him  ! ! — Snow's  Boston,  pp. 
202,  203. 


399  -       REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

they  nude  it  corituiae  always  a  brat,  and  never  allowed  it 
to  grow  to  manhood.*  I  find  the  Scottish  and  Genevan 
models  carefully  avoided  in  the  construction  of  formularies 
of  faith. t  I  find  a  controversy  set  on  foot  to  exclude  Pres- 
byterianism  from  Massachusetts,  as  late  as  1705 ;  even  after 
a  sort  of  peace  had  been  patched  up  between  the  Indepen- 
dents and  Presbyterians  in  England  in  1690,  and  their  con- 
cordat adopted  for  all  it  was  worth  in  the  colony  of  Con- 
necticut.! I  find  a  Presbyterian  house  of  worship  assaulted 
at  dead  of  night — and  by  a  mob  composed  of  the  most  re- 
spectable inhabitants  of  a  Puritan  town — levelled  with  the 
ground,  and  its  occupants  obliged  to  flee  for  protection  into 
a  neighboring  State — and  all  this  as  far  down  as  1720. §  I 
find  Presbyterians  attacked  even  with  firearms,  and  their 
petitions  answered  with  *'  mingled  subtlety  and  illiberality."|| 
And  even  down  to  the  very  late  date  of  1783,  when  this 
country  had  been  severed  from  England,  I  find  such  efforts 
made  in  Massachusetts  to  convert  a  Presbyterian  Society 
into  a  Congregational  one,  as  to  draw  from  a  Presbytery 
the  awful  sentence  of  excommunication  upon  all  who  joined 
in  them — not  less  than  twenty  persons.  Surely  there  must 
have  been  something  very  pernicious,  and  very  wrong,  in 
the  treatment  of  Presbyterianism  by  Puritanism,  up  to  the 
times  which  border  upon  our  own,  to  provoke  its  wrath  so 
sorely  !^ 

And  at  last  the  question  came  up  before  me.  Can  I  not  put 
my  finger  on  something  which  displays  the  belligerent 
aspect  of  Puritanism  and  Presbyterianism,  in  the  times  amid 

*  Douglass'  Summary,  ii.  149.  Eliot's  Biog.  Did.  p.  125.  Turell's 
Life  of  Colman,  pp.  96,  125. 

t  Douglass'  Sum.  i.  440. 

t  See  Wise's  "  Churches'  Quarrel  Espoused." 

§  See  Lincoln's  Hist,  of  Worcester,  where  this  shameful  violence 
occurred,  pp.  47, 191. 

II  Lincoln's  Worcester,  pp.  48,  1 92,  &,c. 

H  Felt's  Salem,  pp.  519,  52§. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  391 

which  we  actually  live  ?  If,  thought  I,  the  testimony  I  want 
cannot  be  found  in  the  cross-fire  of  the  Theological  Review, 
published  at  New-York  until  1839,  and  the  Christian  Spec- 
tator, published  in  New  Haven,  Connecticut,  then,  as  a 
New-Englander  would  say,  I  make  a  strange  guess  indeed. 
To  that  review  I  went,  and,  in  one  of  its  latest  numbers,* 
discovered  a  criticism  upon  a  volume  which  has  not  escaped 
some  comments  of  my  own — the  Historical  Discourses  of 
Mr.  Leonard  Bacon.  And  before  the  second  page  was 
finished,  I  found  Mr.  Bacon's  motives  routed  from  their 
lurking  places,  as  successfully  as  the  perhaps  half-jesuitical 
schemes  of  the  Presbyterians,  in  1643.  "  Whafever  other 
motives  induced  him  to  write  the  book,  that  one  chief  end 
of  it  is  to  subserve  the  interests  of  the  theological  party,  with 
which  he  fraternizes,  [i.  e.,  the  modern  Puritanical,]  and 
disparage  their  opponents,  [old-fashioned  Presbyterians,  and 
all  who  resemble  them  in  doctrine,]  is  too  apparent  to  admit 
of  disguise." 

Now  for  another  extract,  to  see  who^praises  the  Puritans 
of  New  England,  and  how  little  love  is  lost  between  the  old 
litigants ;  and  in  fact,  how  the  breach  has  rather  widened — 
covering  broad  differences  as  to  doctrine,  while  anciently  it 
respected  discij^Une  almost  altogether. 

"  To  laud  our  Pilgrim  Fathers  is  so  congenial  to  the  pre- 
vailing sentiments  and  feelings  of  the  better  portion  of  New 
England  people,  that  they  lack  not  eulogists  of  all  grades. 
It  has  been  a  marvel  with  some,  that  the  frequency  and  ardor 
of  this  panegyric,  seem  to  be  nearly  in  the  ratio  of  depar- 
ture from  their  religious  principles ;  in  other  words,  that 
the  men  who  would  most  heartily  disrelish  and  oppose  one, 
who  should  now  appear  teaching  those  religious  opinions 
which  they  taught,  and  in  the  faith  of  which  they  lived  and 
died,    should  be  most  loud   and  abundant   of  all  in  their 

*  Literary  and  Theol.  Review  vi.  166. 


39:>  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

praises  of  these  same  Puritans.  We  know  of  no  class  who 
have  carried  it  so  far,  as  the  Unitarians  of  Massachusetts.* 
And  with  all  their  horror  of  antiquity  and  *  retrospective 
views,'  we  think  the  New  School  party  in  the  country,  rank 
next  in  their  exuberant  eulogies  of  the  '  Puritans,'  and  the 
'  primitive  New  England  spirit.'  Whether  they  hope  thus 
to  lull  the  apprehensions  of  the  public,  in  regard  to  any  de- 
parture from  New  England's  primitive  faith,  it  is  not  for  us 
to  say." 

Now,  had  some  luckless  Churchman,  (myself  for  exam- 
ple,) expressed  himself  in  this  free  and  rasping  style,  it  would 
have  been  considered,  according  to  the  course  of  nature — a 
modern  outburst  of  the  old  "  Laudean  persecution."  But  it 
is  a  Presbyterian,  par  excellence,  who  writes  thus.  And  do 
you  think  a  Churchman  only  could  match  him,  my  suspicious 
reader  ?  Behold  he  surpasses  himself.  Where  will  you  find 
purer  nitric  acid,  than  in  the  following  sentences,  wound  up 
with  such  a  formidable  application  of  one  of  the  most  terrific 
rebukes  of  Scripture  ?  "  It  is  ever  true  of  mankind,  that  if  their 
reverence  for  eminent  departed  saints  respects  their  persons 
merely,  and  not  their  religious  belief,  it  degenerates  in  to  some- 
thing approaching  man-worship  or  idolatry.  And  idolatry 
of  dead  saints,  goes  hand  in  hand  with  hatred  of  living  ones. 
The  Romish  Church  canonized  dead  saints,  and  persecuted 
living  ones.  And  if  Bellamy  or  Edwards  should  now  appear 
among  men,  preaching  what  they  did  when  alive,  would  it 
be  strange  if  some   of  their  supposed  admirers  should  cry, 

*  This  is  perfectly  true.  See  how  Mr.  Young  in  his  Chronicles  de- 
nounces Douglass,  Chalmers,  Robertson,  Burke,  et  id  genus  omne ;  be- 
cause forsooth  the}' believed  the  Puritans  actuated  by  a  little  worldly  ambi- 
tion. He  calls  them  contemptible  sneerers  1 1 — Young's  Chronicles,  p. 
48. — Alas,  why  is  it  that  so  many,  if  you  lisp  a  syllable  against  the  Puri- 
tans, are  transported  into  downright  fury  I  If  such  people  are  like  the 
Puritans  themselves,  of  old,  no  wonder  England  was  out  of  patience  ^^-ith 
them. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  393 

"  Away  with  them?'  We  cannot  think  that  Christ  was 
pointing  at  a  sin  confined  to  the  Pharisees,  alone,  when  he 
said,  *  Wo  unto  you,  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites!  be- 
cause ye  build  the  tombs  of  the  prophets,  and  garnish  the 
sepulchres  of  the  righteous,  and  say,  If  we  had  been  in  the 
days  of  our  fathers,  we  would  not  have  been  partakers  with 
them  in  the  blood  of  the  prophets.  Wherefore  ye  be  wit- 
nesses unto  yourselves,  that  ye  are  the  children  of  them 
which  killed  the  prophets.'  " 

This  is  about  the  coronation  of  a  climax,  some  will 
surely  think,  and  yet  the  writer  is  not  quite  content;  he 
gives  Mr.  Bacon  a  Parthian  arrow  as  he  leaves  him,  for 
broaching  the  old  theory  of  development  for  the  exigencies 
of  the  age.  "  Lack  of  sympathy  with  the  popular  heart" 
is,  with  Mr.  Bacon,  ''  a  fatal  disqualification  for  the  pulpit." 
The  reviewer  aptly  reminds  him  of  that  shout  which  once 
burst  from  the  "popular  heart,"  "  Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephe- 
sians"  !  He  might  better  have  reminded  him  of  another, 
which  was  once  brought  to  the  mind  of  an  older  pleader  for 
popular  infallibility.  '  I  must  be  right,'  said  John  Wesley, 
'  for  vox  populi,  vox  Dei.'  '  Yes,'  replied  his  sister,  with  a 
wit  and  wisdom  any  maw  who  ever  lived  might  envy,  *  it  said, 
Crucify  him  !  Crucify  him  !'  Wesley  was  paralyzed  into 
silence ;  and  would  to  Heaven  the  developing  tendencies  of 
Puritanism  might  ever  be  thus  arrested.  But  alas !  as  the 
prophet  said  of  old,  "  My  people  love  to  have  it  so,"  and  the 
forewarning  query,  "  W^hat  will  ye  do  in  the  end  thereof?" 
is  lost  upon  unwilling  ears,  like  "  the  sounding  again  of  the 
mountains."*  The  law,  the  most  sacred  of  laws,  which 
Puritanic  Independency  impressed  upon  its  own  destinies,  in 
the  Great  Manifesto  of  the  days  of  the  Commonwealth,  to  be 
never  yesterday  and  to-day  the  same,  abides  with  it,  and 
rules  it  still.     Mr.  Bacon  and  his  fellow  semi-pelagians,  per- 

*  Jer.  V.  31.    Ezek.  vii.7. 


304  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

fectionists,  &c.,  &,c.,*  are  but  carrying  out  its  legitimate  aim. 
And  when  I  see  Presbyterianism  rising  to  rebuke  it,  as  in 
the  extracts  just  given,  I  do  but  seem  to  hear  the  voices  of 
such  as  Thomas  Edwards  and  Robert  Baillie,  echoing  from 
the  vistas  of  the  past. 

P.  S. — To  show  how  effectually  Presbyterianism  has 
been  kept  out  of  Massachusetts — more  effectually  far  than 
Episcopacy — I  add  the  following  statistics.  Morse,  in  his 
Geography  of  1792,  gives  the  number  of  Presbyterians  in 
Massachusetts,  in  17  iO,  as  2,994.  In  1792,  as  2,776. — 
While  Hay  ward,  in  his  statistics  of  18:36,  says  they  have 
but  two  churches  in  the  whole  State. — Morse's  Geog.  p.  171 . 
Hay  ward  143. 


LETTER   XVIII. 

The  present  letter  will  be  the  last  of  this  series,  and  will 
be  devoted  to  the  consideration  of  sufferers  at  the  hands  of  the 
Puritans,  who  deserve  a  far  more  honored  place  among  such 
sufferers,  than  multitudes,  who  have  no  particular  sympathy 
with  the  Puritans,   are   willing  to   allow.     I  allude   to  the 

*  Independency  may  create  such  a  brood  now,  as  it  did  of  old.  "  It 
was  out  of  Independency,  that  there  sprang  the  numerous  sects  which  are 
the  reproach  of  Presbyterianism,  and  of  itself — the  Sabbatarians,  Millen- 
arians,  Grindletonians,  Muggletonians,  Fifth-Monarchists,  Ranters,  Seek- 
ers, Quakers,  Anabaptists  ;  with  many  others,  more  short-lived  than 
these." — Rise  of  Old  Dissent,  exemplified  in  the  Life  of  Oliver  Heywood, 
by  J.  Hunter.  London,  1842,  p.  61.  Mr.  Hunter,  I  presume,  is  a  Pres- 
byterian !     See  his  pref.  p.  xii. 

And  see  the  Churchman  of  Sept.  13,  1834,  for  some  amusing  com- 
ments on  Perfectionism,  tracing  its  succession  through  Doctors  Taylor 
and  Beecher. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  395 

Aborigines.  I  am  reluctant  to  believe,  what  the  testimony 
of  history  requires  me  to  admit,  that  my  countrymen  of  all 
classes  have  too  little  fellow  feeling  for  "the  poor  Indian" — 
far  less  than  becomes  professed  and  forward  advocates  for 
the  doctrine  of  an  equality  of  natural  rights.  This  doctrine 
is  elaborately  set  forth  in  our  Declaration  of  Independence  : 
which  solemnly  announces  that  all  men — not  one  nation,  or 
one  clan,  but  all  men  without  distinction  of  rank  or  color — are 
born  free  and  equal.  It  is  difficult  to  account  for  this,  but 
upon  the  supposition  that  we  are  conscious  of  an  immense 
amount  of  wrong-doing  towards  this  unfortunate  race  ;  and 
that  it  is  the  peculiarity  of  the  wrong-doer,  rather  than  of 
the  injured,  to  retain  intense  dislike.  Proprium  humani 
ingenii  est  odisse  quem  laeseris. 

However,  if  Americans  generally  have  failed  in  compas- 
sion for  the  unhappy  fortunes  of  the  Red  Man,  the  Puritans 
should  have  been  the  very  last  among  them  to  do  so.  They 
had  given  sacred  and  voluntary  pledges  to  treat  them  with 
the  utmost  consideration.  These  letters  effectually  prove, 
what  an  incomparable  favor  Puritans  deemed  royal  charters 
— how  they  compassed  sea  and  land  to  make  one  proselyte 
to  their  schemes  for  obtaining  such  "  a  precious  boon." — 
But  the  very,  the  exact,  the  grand  consideration,  for  which 
those  charters  were  imparted,  was  a  Christian  devotion  to 
the  best  welfare  of  the  native  inhabitants  of  America.  This 
point,  like  others,  has  been  alluded  to  before.  It  must  now 
come  up  formally.  I  appeal,  then,  to  the  language  of  the 
Charter — I  must  beg  my  readers  to  be  particular  in  their 
recollections — not  of  the  King's  letter,  or  the  King's  manda- 
mus, but  of  the  great  parchment  Charter  of  Massachusetts ; 
which  Mr.  Bancroft  once  said  was  unrolled  with  so  much 
state,  when  an  enlargement  of  territory  was  hoped  for. — 
''And  we  do  of  our  further  grace,  certain  knowledge,  and 
mere  motion,  give  and  grant  to  the  said  Governor  and  Com- 
pany,   and  their  successors,  &/C.,  for  the  directing,  ruling. 


396  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

and  disposing  of  all  other  matters  and  things,  whereby  our 
said  people,  inhabitants  there,  may  be  so  religiously,  peace- 
ably, and  civilly  governed,  as  their  good  life  and  orderly 
conversation  may  win  and  incite  the  natives  of  the  country 
to  the  knowledge  and  obedience  of  the  only  true  God  and 
Saviour  of  mankind,  and  the  Christian  faith  ;  which  in  our 
royal  intention  *  and  the  adventurers'  free  profession,  is  the 
principal  end  of  this  plantation.'' f  The  language  of  the 
Charter  of  Connecticut  is  precisely  similar,  with  two  varia- 
tions. It  reads  "  win  and  invite;"  for  '' win  and  incite;" 
which  may  possibly  be  a  typographical  error.  And  it  also 
reads  "  the  only  and  principal  end  of  this  plantation"! — ^ 
somewhat  ominous  addition  ;  as  if  negligence,  or  something 
worse,  required  the  English  Government  to  be  more  emphatic 
upon  a  point,  rather  too  costly  to  the  pocket  and  trying  to 
patience,  to  be  remembered  with  perfect  precision  ! 

So  then,  it  appears,  that  these  celebrated  Charters  were 
granted,  not  upon  an  implied  or  virtual,  but  upon  the  ex- 
pressed and  literal  stipulation  and  condition,  that  the  Puritan 
*'  adventurers"  should  put  forth  their  best  and  most  unwea- 
ried efforts,  for  the  conversion  of  the  natives  of  New  Eng- 
land to  Christianity.  This  was  the  rnttter  of  fact  quid  pro 
quo — was  neither  more  nor  less  than  the  plain  price,  or  bonus 
as  we  might  now  say,  which  they,  of  their  own  unconstrain- 
ed accord,  paid  for  these  charters.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that 
the  king  might  receive  other  and  further  compensation;  as, 
e  g.,  a  fifth  of  the  revenue  of  mines  and  gold  and  silver.    But 

*  Or  *•'  intentions :"  I  am  not  certain  about  the  reading. 

t  Anc.  Charters,  &:.,  p.  14.     Cradock's  letter,  Felt's  Salem,  p.  11. 

t  Hazard's  Collect,  ii.  602.  Hinman's  Antiquities,  183.  And  fur- 
ther. This  peculiarity  of  the  Charter  was  occasionally  confessed.  See 
a  preamble  to  an  act  about  the  Indians,  p.  95  of  the  Connecticut  Laws, 
edit.  1769.  There  is  one  drawback,  however.  The  Charter  says,  "  the 
only,"  &  •.  The  preamble  Jesuitically  lowers  this  very  decided  language, 
and  says,  "  one  great  end."  This  is  interpreting  a  Constitution  by  the 
favorite  rule,  "  as  I  understand  it."     We  see  where  the  rule  comes  from 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  397 

all  that  was  problematical.  The  sure  and  certain  compen- 
sation which  was  provided  for,  was  the  conversion  of  the  na- 
tives to  Christianity ;  and  the  granting  Charters  to  distant 
settlements  for  such  a  noble  object,  were  an  act  which  might 
well  entitle  a  monarch  to  that  highest  of  human  appellations, 
"  The  father  of  his  country." 

Thus  it  appears,  that  it  was  the  King  of  England,  (big- 
oted Churchman,  and  half-papist  as  they  esteemed  him,) 
rather  than  the  Puritans,*  who  took  the  Aborigines  into  a 
kind  consideration,  and  prospectively  regarded  their  welfare. 
And  if  the  Puritans  had  seconded  the  King's  wishes  without 
delay — had  acceded  with  all  their  hearts  to  his  terms,  in  re- 
spect to  the  missionary  requital  expected  for  charter  privi- 
leges and  protection — and  had  labored,  at  once  and  zealous- 
ly, to  fulfil  their  contract,  by  devoting  undivided  efibrts  to 
the  conversion  of  the  Indians — making  that  their  only  or 
principal  business,  as  it  was  the  only  and  principal  end  of 
their  plantation — I  say,  if  they  had  done  all  this,  they  had 
done  no  more  than  a  duty  which  might  have  been  exacted 
of  them  by  a  human  court  of  law  !  They  would  have  gone 
not  a  whit  beyond  common  mercantile  honesty,  in  the  fulfil- 
ment of  a  pecuniary  contract.  They  would  have  merited 
not  one  single  plaudit. 

But  how  different,  how  immensely  different,  the  represen- 
tations usually  made  of  this  aftair !  Do  but  look  into  such 
a  volume  as  that  fourth  of  the  third  series  of  the  Massachu- 
setts Historical  Collections,  and  see.  Here  is  line  upon 
line,  tract  upon  tract,  to  display  the  wonders  of  Puritan  phi- 
lanthropy, for  the  victim  of  heathenism  in  New  England. 
And  the  series  of  goodly  tales  is  ushered  into  new-born  life, 
by  a  publishing  committee,  *'  as  authentic  narratives  of  the 

*  No  wonder  even  Dr.  Dwight  was  constrained  to  say,  as  he  review- 
ed Puritan  and  Episcopal   annals,  "  I  really  believe,  that   the   English 
I         Church  has  done  more  than  most  others  to  promote  the  cause  of  Chris- 
tianity."— Travels,  i.  61 , 

18 


398  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

GREAT  EFFORTS,  made  by  some  of  the  fathers  in  our  Israel, 
for  the  spiritual  welfare  of  the  children  of  the  forest."  Great 
efforts !  Are  those  great  efforts  of  charity,  which  are  made 
in  mere  payment  of  a  debt — for  the  fulfilment  of  a  legal 
bond?  The  Jesuit  of  North  America  asked  for  no  charter, 
but  went  with  his  life  in  his  hands,  into  the  depths  of  the 
forest;  and  shared  an  Indian's  fare,  and  an  Indian's  toils, 
so  he  might  "win  and  invite"  him  to  his  faith.  ''  Iho,  et 
non  redibo,''  was  his  foreboding  farewell.  And  when  he 
died,  as  he  often  did,  a  martyr,  (his  whole  body,  perhaps, 
converted  into  a  blazing  torch,)  he  could  depart  without  a 
murmur  for  his  fate,  the  name  of  Jesus  breathed  forth  with 
his  last  sigh  !* 

And  yet  a  Puritan  will  tell  us,  he  was  but  a  political  em- 
issary dispatched  by  France,t  to  stir  up  the  northern  tribes 
for  the  massacre  of  himself  and  family ;  while  he,  whose 
chartered  duty  it  was  to  convert  Indians,  could  foredoom 
them  to  destruction,  and  still  be  all  the  while  an  emissary 
of  God  !  A  Puritan  minister  is  recorded  by  Increase  Mather 
in  his  Indian  Troubles,  who  "  publickly  declared  that  he 
foresaw  the  destruction  of  the  Narragansett  nation  ;  solemn- 
ly confirming  his  speech  by  saying,  If  God  do  not  destroy 
that  people,  then  say  that  his  Spirit  hath  not  spoken  by 
me."  And  adds  Mather,  with  his  own  oracular  presumption, 
"  Surely  that  holy  man  was  a  prophet."!  Such  an  incendi- 
ary as  this,  safe  in  his  nest,  is  Heaven's  own  prophet :  while 
a  Jesuit,  hacked  in  pieces,  or  consumed  by  a  slow  fire,  for 
his  efforts  to  convert  infidels,  is  the  mere  tool  of  chicanery 
and  the  slave  of  superstition  !  I  blush  for  Protestantism, 
that  history  wrings  from  me  the  shameful  comparison. 

*  Bancroft,  iii.  137-141. 

t  The  words  of  Gov.  Bradford  might  be  retorted  by  the  French  and 
Dutch  too  ;  for  he  confessed  the  Indians  had  English  guns,  because  the 
French  and  Dutch  were  too  slight.  This  shows  where  the  guns  of  the 
Indians  came  from. — Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  ser.  iii.  83. 

I  Mather's  Ind.  Troubles,  edit.  1677,  p.  60. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  399 

And,  moreover,  if  we  grant  a  license  to  Puritan  rhetoric 
about  the  "great  efforts"  made  by  its  fathers  in  Israel,  no 
small  deduction  must  be  made  when  we  come  to  dry,  dull 
fact.  For  when  did  these  great  efforts  begin  ?  The  Char- 
ter of  Masssachusetts  was  granted  in  1629.  And  our  vol- 
ume of  mcmorahilia,  just  adverted  to,  opens  with  the  date  of 
a  post-note  which  has  had  an  extension,  viz.,  with  October 
28,  1646,  i.  e.,  seventeen  years  later !  A  somewhat  liberal 
allowance  of  time,  to  attend  to  the  principal  and  only  end  of 
their  settlement ;  but  which,  I  suppose,  must  be  granted  to 
those,  who  were  always  right  while  every  body  else  was 
wrong.  They  could  found  a  college  ;  for  Harvard  Univer- 
sity had  its  beginning  in  1638.  They  could  establish  an 
Iron  Works  Company,  for  the  manufacture  possibly  of 
swords  and  guns,  as  well  as  pruning-hooks  and  plough- 
shares.* They  could  make  voyages  to  sell  captive  Indians 
into  slavery,  and  come  back  with  cargoes  of  cotton,  tobac- 
co, salt,  and  negroes  ;f  and  this  as  early  as  1637  ;  that  is,  in 
eight  years  after  a  Charter  had  been  granted  them.  But  as 
to  any  thing  like  a  just  fulfilment  of  their  indebtedness  for 
Indian  conversions — why,  twice  ^hat  period  was  enough  lo 
think  about  it.'^^  Polemical  theology  in  the  schools,  manu- 
factures, trade  and  traffic  in  luxuries  as  well  as  necessa- 
ries— in  "  cheese,  wine,  oil,  and  strong  water,"|  in  "  slaves 
and  souls  of  men  "§  must  be  attended  to  beforehand.  And 
to  help  on  trade,  and  traffic,  and  war,  other  abominations  of 
later  days,  the  press-gang  and  conscription  systems  might  be 

^"  See  Note   125. 

*  Felt's  Salem,  p.  167. 

t  Ibid.  p.  109. — Hutchinson,  i.  26,  note.     See  also  Note  124. 
X  Felt's  Salem,  p.  62. 

§  Slaves  were  made  of  both   Indians  and  Africans  !     Felt's  Ipswich, 
pp.  119,  120.     Also  of  poor  debtors  !  !  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  ser.  iii.  330. 


400  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

resorted  to.*     But  religion   for  the  poor   heathen — oh,  for 
that,  they  must  wait  for  greater  leisure  ? 

Notwithstanding  they  were  not  without  sound  rebukes 
for  their  illegal  and  dishonest,  as  well  as  unchristian  negli- 
gence. Before  the  Charter  was  brought  over  and  laid  upon 
a  shelf,  where  no  eyes  but  their  own  could  see  it,t  and  dis- 
cover in  it  disturbing  reminiscences,  they  were  carefully 
exhorted  by  the  Company  in  England,  not  to  "  be  unmindful 
of  the  mayne  end  of  our  plantation,  by  endeavoringe  to  bring 
the  Indians  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Gospel. "J  Roger 
Williams,  the  victim  of  their  persecution  and  outlawry,  re- 
membered the  duty  of  the  Colony,  and  set  them  an  example, 
had  they  followed  which,  an  immense  amount  of  blood  and 
treasure  had  been  unwasted.§  And  an  Episcopalian,  re- 
calling the  conditions  of  an  Episcopal  King's  Charter,  in- 
voked their  attention  to  their  duty,  years  before  they 
barkened  to  any  purpose  whatsoever.  Thomas  Lechford, 
a  lawver,  from  England,  and  a  Churchman,  spent  the  four 
years  from  1637  to  1641  in  Massachusetts,  in  the  practice 
of  his  profession.il  On  his  return  to  the  mother  country,  he 
published  his  "  Plaine  Dealing;"  in  which,  among  other 
thincrs,  he  tells   us  how  plainly  he   dealt  with   the  Puritans 

*  Fell's  Salem,  p.  76.  Plymouth  Col.  Laws,  112,  121,  193.  Anc. 
Col.  Laws,  &c.  130. 

t  The  Charter  was  carried  away  by  stealth  ;  and  that  ii  was,  which 
made  the  English  Government  issue  orders  to  stop  emigration,  unless 
the  emif^rants  would  take  the  oath  of  allegiance  ;  and  no  wonder. — Chal- 
iner's Revolt,  i.  49. 

X  Felt's  Salem,  p.  11. 

§  Williams  remonstrated  with  them  too,  most  pathetically,  in  after 
years.  Let  this  appeal  suffice  as  a  specimen.  "  I  beseech  you  consider, 
how  the  name  of  the  most  holy  and  jealous  God  may  be  presers^ed,  be- 
tween the  clashings  of  these  two,  viz.,  the  glorious  conversion  of  the  In- 
dians in  New  England,  and  the  unnecessary  wars  and  cruel  destructions 
of  the  Indians  in  New  England." — R.  I.  Hist.  Coll.  iii.  155. 

11  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  ser.  iii.  399. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  401 

about  their  duties  to  the  Aborigines.*  And  no  wonder  ; 
for  not  the  King  of  England  only  had  manifested  the  deepest 
anxiety  for  the  conversion  of  the  Indians,  but  one  of  that 
King's  high-church  bishops  declared,  that  nothing  but  age 
and  infirmities  prevented  him  from  going  to  America,  and 
devoting  himself  to  the  work,  arduous  as  it  might  be.t  A 
high-churchman  in  lawn  could  hardly  be  contented  to  be 
outdone  by  a  Jesuit  in  such  business  ;  however  complacently 
that  eclipse  could  be  endured  by  a  Puritan,  while  filling  his 
pocket  with  gold  1;  for  the  sale  of  human  flesh — tickling  his 
palate  with  "  cheese,  wine,  oil,  and  strong  water,"  and 
going  to  taverns  to  hear  sermons. § 

But  with  such  hard  and  frequent  hints  as  to  his  duty, 
and  with  that  duty  symbolized  and  stamped  upon  the  very 
seal  of  his  Colony,  (for  the  device  on  the  Massachusetts  seal 
was  an  Indian  with  a  label  at  his  mouth,  containing  the 
words.  Come  over  and  help  us  !)  a  Puritan  could  still  hold 
out.  Seventeen  years  give  him  time  barely  sufficient  to 
look  about  him,  and  think  wherefore  he  was  an  adventurer 
from  his  natal  soil. 

But  then,  surely,  he  does  his  duty  manfully,  and  with 
good  grace.  Alas  !  would  that  I  could  say  so.  His  Elders, 
who  are  forward  enough  in  civil  matters,  and  who  can  pro- 
phetically send  the  poor  Indians  to  perdition,  have  to  be 
provoked  to  the  work  of  converting  them  by  a  legislature. || 
And  even  then,  perhaps,  nothing  had  been  accomplished  but 
for  the  earnestness  of  a  single  man  ;  whose  marvellous  de- 
votion Hutchinson   tries  to  portray,  by  saying,  that  he  ap- 

*  Lechford's  tract  is  reprinted  in  3d  vol.  3d  series,  Mass.  Hist.  Coll. 
See  especially,  pp.  80,  88. 

t   Sparks'  Am.  Biog.  1st  ser.  v.  36. 

t  "  The  grosse  Goddons,  or  great  masters,  as  also  some  of  their 
merchants,  are  damnable  rich." — Josselyn's  Voyages,  Mass.  Hist.  Coll. 
3d  ser.  iii.  331. 

§  Felt's  Salem,  61,  62. 

II  Hutchinson,  i.  151.     Sparks'  Am.  Biog.  1st.  ser.  v.  38. 


402  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

plied  himself  to  his  volunteered  undertaking,  ''  with  zeal 
equal  to  that  of  the  missionaries  of  the  Romish  Church,"* 

This  man  was  the  (so  called)  Apostle,  John  Eliot ;  for 
the  Puritans  could  easily  appropriate  even  a  stronger  word 
than  bishop,  when  it  was  required  to  dignify  one  of  their 
own  order.  Yet,  Eliot  could  not  commence  his  workt  with 
even  the  self-sacrificing  temper  of  a  Jesuit,  without  ac- 
knowledging the  remissness  of  former  years.  "  But  me- 
thinkes  now,"  he  says,  in  his  "  Day-Breaking  of  the  Gospell," 
''  that  it  is  with  the  Indians,  as  it  was  with  our  New-English 
ground,  when  we  first  came  over  ;  there  was  scarce  a  man 
that  could  believe  that  English  grain  would  grow,  or  that  the 
plow  could  doe  any  good  in  this  woody  and  rocky  soile. 
And  thus  they  continued,  in  this  supine  unhcliefe,  for  some 
years,  till  experience  taught  them  otherwise ;  and  now  all 
see  it  to  bee  scarce  inferiour  to  Old-English  tillage,  but 
beares  very  good  burdens  :  so  wee  have  thought  of  our 
Indian  people. "t  However,  there  was  one  point  on  which 
he  was  deficient,  with  all  his  intelligence  and  zeal.  He 
supposed  that  civilization  must  precede  Christianity :  after 
all,  not  making  any  great  advance  beyond  the  apprehen- 
sions of  his  countrymen  whom  he  censured. § 

Now  the  modern  theory  is,  and  it  is  undoubtedly  the 
true  one,  that  the  direct  application  of  the  Gospel  to  the 
heathen,  is  the  best  method  of  proceeding.  The  Moravian 
missionaries  in  Greenland  enlightened  Christendom,  upon 
this  point  of  Christian  policy.  They  found  the  story  of  a 
Saviour's  atoning  death,  more  effectual,  even  to  begin  with, 

»  Hutchinson,  i.  152.     Comp.  Williams'  Vermont,  1809,  i.  271,272. 

t  For  which  the  Legislature  vote  him  ten  pounds,  not  out  of  their 
own  pockets,  but  out  of  twenty  left  for  that  purpose  by  a  pious  lady  !  No 
wonder  Josselyn  should  call  them  "  inexplicably  covetous." — See  Felt's 
Salem,  p.  176,  and  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  ser.  iii  331.  Also  Sparks' Am. 
Biog.  1st  ser.  V.  129-131. 

X  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  ser.  iv.  15.  §  Hutchinson,  i.  152,  153. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITAN ».  493 

than  arguments  for  the  existence  of  a  God.*  And  Jowett, 
a  Church  of  England  missionary  for  the  countries  around 
the  Mediterranean,  gives  his  attestation  to  the  same  power 
of  the  same  truths. 

And  these  have  been  looked  upon  as  fruits  of  modern 
light  and  experience,  when  lo  !  the  same  result  was  reached 
by  that  Churchman,  whom  the  posterity  of  the  Puritans  are 
wont  to  disparage  for  his  ''  Plaine  Dealing ;"  and  was  com- 
mended to  the  attention  of  the  Puritans  themselves,  when 
he  rebuked  them  for  their  supineness.  '*  In  vaine,"  says 
Lechford,  ''  doe  some  think  of  civillizing  them,  either  by 
the  sword  or  otherwise,  [it  seems  both  alternatives  were 
thought  of,  and  which  was  first  practised  will  duly  appear,] 
till  withall  the  Word  of  God  hath  spoken  to  their  hearts  : 
wherein  I  conceive  great  advice  is  to  be  taken. "f  Had  so 
truly  divine  a  thought  come  from  a  Puritan  parson,  it  would 
have  been  pronounced  an  oracle.  It  teemed  in  the  brain  of 
an  Episcopal  lawyer,  and  the  rubbish  of  centuries  has  been 
piled  upon  it. 

And  now,  having  shown,  pretty  effectually,  how  all  the 
good  the  Puritans  did  the  Indians  was  done  only  in  fulfil- 
ment of  bare  legal  duty — legal,  i.  e.,  in  the  human  sense, 
and  under  the  sanction  of  a  human  court,  and  of  course  a 
mere  debt — it  behoves  me  next,  to  show  something  also  of 
the  evil  they  did  them,  and  which  they  dealt  out  with  no 
slow  or  relenting  hand.  It  may  be  expected  by  some,  per- 
haps, that  I  should  speak  more  at  large  of  Eliot,  before 
doing  so.  But  if  (for  example)  I  were  to  eulogize  Eliot 
for  his  Indian  translation  of  the  Scriptures,  as  a  marvel  of 
patient  toil,  I  ought  to  eulogize  the  Dictionary  of  Sebastian 
Ralle,  as  a  much  greater ;  since  it  is  far  harder,  and  more 
praiseworthy,  to  make  a  Dictionary  for  a  ichole  language, 
than  to  translate  any  one  book  in   it,   however   important. 

*  Greenland  Missions,  Dublin,  1831,  p.  90. 
t  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  ser.  iii.  91. 


404  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

My  Puritiin  readers,  therefore,  had  better  not  form  such 
expectations;  for,  assuredly,  if  I  must  praise  their  missiona- 
ries of  legal  obligation,  I  must  praise  the  voluntary  mis- 
sionaries of  the  Jesuits  ten  times  more.  For  their  own 
sakes,  therefore,  I  prefer  to  be  silent.* 

Upon  the  positive  evil,  however,  done  by  the  Puritans 
to  the  Aborigines,  historical  fidelity  requires  me  not  to  be 
silent ;  and  if  my  dealing,  like  Lechford's,  is  plain,  it  will 
be  because  my  facts  are  palpable.  Doubtless,  their  de- 
scendants will  think  me  bitter,  and  that  I  have  been  poring 
over,  and  trying  to  exemplify,  that  even-handed  justice, 
about  which  Shakspeare  talks  with  as  much  truth  as  poetry, 
when  he  says  it — 

Commends  the  ingredients  of  our  poisoned  chalice 
To  our  own  lips. 

But  I  shall  go  on,  fearless  of  censure;  for  probably  the 
measure  in  store  for  me,  is  too  copious  to  be  much  in- 
creased.! 

And  here,  as  has  before  seemed  my  lot,  when  I  have 
been  upon  the  brink  of  some  fresh  expanse  of  Puritan  mis- 
chief, a  sea  of  troubles,  like  that  which  I  have  beheld 
chafing  the  iron-bound  shores  of  Massachusetts,  opens  be- 
fore my  eyes.  The  difficulty  to  be  encountered  is,  not  to 
find  facts,  but  to  class  them,  and  give  specimens.  I  must 
try  a  few  under  two  or  three  captions,  and  refer  to  histo- 
rians for  more. 

*  "  Of  all  that  ever  crossed  the  American  seas,"  says  the  Presbyterian 
Baillie  of  the  Puritans,  "  they  are  noted  as  most  neglectful  of  the  work  of 
conversion." — Baillie's  Dissuasive,  p.  60. — I  say  no  more  of  them,  then, 
than  the  Presbyterians  did. 

t  The  Unitarian  (!)  Mr.  Young  gives  one  to  understand,  that  a  wri- 
ter who  impeaches  Puritan  virtue,  loses  all  his  respectability  at  one  fell 
Bwoop.  So  I  stand  some  chance  of  becoming  a  martyr. — Young's 
Chronicles,  p.  48. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  405 

I. — My  first  point  will  be,  that  often  the  Indians  did  not 
receive  fair  compensation  for  their  lands. 

Chalmers,  whose  accuracy  was  so  long  put  to  the  test 
about  the  Rhode  Island  law  against  Roman  Catholics,  and 
who  came  off  triumphant,  may  well  be  relied  on  here.  For 
myself  I  have  the  more  confidence  in  him,  because  of  the 
precision  of  his  statement  upon  this  litigated  subject.  He 
does  not  absolutely  deny,  that  the  Indians  were  compensated 
for  the  soil ;  but  he  says  that  proof  of  the  fact  has  never 
been  made  out.  This  is  his  own  language.  "  Yet  it  does 
not  appear  that  any  compensation  was  given  to  the  natives, 
when  possession  was  taken  of  their  country,  by  a  people 
who  soon  overspread  the  land,  and  unjustly  deemed  every 
exertion  in  its  defence  an  act  of  rebellion  against  their 
laws."  And  he  adds,  with  a  gentle  sarcasm,  when  he  might 
have  thundered  in  philippics,  "  Had  the  tribes  any  other 
mode  of  acquiring  experience,  than  from  the  tradition  of 
their  fathers,  what  a  school  of  knowledge,  moral  and  politi- 
cal, would  the  colonial  annals  open  to  their  researches!"* 

No  doubt  this  is  the  exact  state  of  the  matter  :  non 
est  inventus  must  often  be  returned  upon  the  search-warrant 
for  Indian  deeds  of  soil.  Neal  himself  seems  clearly  to  be 
under  this  impression  ;  for  when  Mather,  in  his  Magnalia, 
roundly  asserts  that  the  Indian  lands  were  paid  for,  he  omi- 
nously comments  thus,  "  If  the  Doctor's  allegations  are 
true."t  Nothing  but  allegations  to  sustain  the  doctrine,  in 
Neal's  view,  and  those  allegations  so  suspicious  that  they 
must  be  alloyed  with  a  base  "  if"     It  is  not  surprising,  that 

*  Chalmers'  Annals,  p.  154.  The  Indians  could  complain,  however, 
and  did  complain  in  their  way. — See  poor  Old  Will's  murmurs.  Coffin's 
Newburyport,  p.  363. 

t  Neal's  New  England,  i.  155.  So  Dr.  Dwight,  after  all  his  zealous 
defence  of  the  Puritans,  has  to  say,  "  unless  lam  deceived."  He  excepts 
also  the  country  of  the  Pequots. — Dwight's  Travels,  i.  167. 

18* 


406  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

one  more  accurate  than  Neal,   (the  editor  of  Winthrop,) 
should  utter  as  a  maxim,  *  Put  not  your  faith  in  Mather.'* 

And  when  we  come  down  to  later  authorities,  there  is 
the  same  melancholy  deficiency  of  available  evidence.  Not, 
I  mean,  for  want  of  strong  allegation,  as  in  Mather's  case. 
Oh  no  !  Felt,  and  Young,  and  Knowles  even,  maintain 
stoutly  that  the  Indians  did  receive  compensation. 

But  what  is  Mr.  Felt's  best  prooft  to  show  that  Indian 
claims  to  land  were  equitably  extinguished?  A  direction 
from  the  Company  in  England,  before  the  secret  transfer  of 
the  Charter,  that  such  things  should  be  attended  to.  Very 
well,  exceedingly  well,  so  far  as  it  goes.  But  a  more  solemn 
instrument,  the  Charter  itself,  gave  a  most  explicit  direction 
as  to  the  conversion  of  the  Indians — a  duty  long,  and  some 
will  think,  wantonly  disregarded.  And  if  in  respect  to  debts 
towards  souls,  which  are  of  much  value,  the  Puritans  were 
so  negligent,  Vv'hat  is  to  be  inferred  as  to  their  attention  to 
debts,  of  lesser  value  indeed  in  God's  eye,  but  of  far  greater 
value  in  man's — viz.  those  which  might  be  disastrous  to  the 
pocket  ? 

Yet  this  same  direction  is  one  of  Mr.  Young's  strong 
proofs ;  J  while  Mr.  Knowles§  goes  to  the  North  American  Re- 
view, and  Vattel's  Law  of  Nations — this  last,  an  amusing  proof 
indeed — as  if  an  allegation  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  echoed 
by  a  European,  ought  to  be  listened  to  by  all  the  world ! 
Vattel,  moreover,  gives  an  authority  of  the  blindest  kind  for 
his  opinion,  viz.  "  History  of  the  English  Colonies  in  North 
America;"  but  hy  whom,  he  does  not  say,  nor  does  he  give 
date,  page,  or  volume.     However,  this  is  quite  sufficient,  is 

*  Savage's  Wint.  ii.  331,  note. 

t  Felt's  Salem,  pp.  17,  22,  24.  Yet,  even  on  Mr.  Felt's  own  show- 
ing, the  Company  at  home  thought  it  necessary  to  speak,  more  than  once. 
And  the  Puritans  were  very  dull  of  hearing  upon  this  subject,  as  we  shall 
see  by  and  by. 

X  Chronicles,  p.  259,  note.  §  Knowles'  R.  Williams,  p.  9G. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  407 

perfect  demonstration  to  an  advocate  of  Puritan  honesty  ; 
and  doubtless  would  remain  so,  if  perchance  found  in  a  book, 
which  the  Chrysostom  of  modern  Puritans  calls  *'  that  most 
unscrupulous  and  malicious  of  lying  narratives,  Peters'  His- 
tory of  Connecticut."* 

And  by  the  way,  since  I  have  introduced  him  casually, 
I  may  as  well  go  on  to  observe,  that  our  Chrysostom,  (whom 
any  one  would  recognize  by  the  golden  specimen  of  his  elo- 
quence now  quoted,)  is  particularly  nervous  upon  this  sub- 
ject of  Indian  compensation,  and  gives  a  somewhat  funny 
sign  of  it.  "  Patents  and  charters  from  the  king,"  he  says, 
"  were  never  considered  good  against  the  rights  of  the  na- 
tives. Let  any  man  demonstrate  if  he  can,  that  in  Connec- 
ticut," &:c.t  Not  so  fast,  not  so  fast,  O  logician,  veiiiis 
et  fuhninis  ocyor  alis.  You  are  perpetrating  a  noii  seqidtur. 
You  assert  roundly,  that  a  king's  patent  was  never  con- 
sidered good  against  a  native's  rights,  and  then  attempt  to 
prove  your  proposition  true  by  the  history  of  Connecticut. t 
But  this  will  by  no  means  answer.  "  Never"  covers  the 
history  of  Massachusetts;  and  it  is  with  Massachusetts  prin- 
cipally that  I  have  to  do. 

And  now,  who  but  the  willingly  forgetful,  (and  I  intend- 
ed this  fact  as  one  of  my  strong  arguments  per  contra,)  need 
to  be  reminded,  that  one  of  the  grand  heads  and  fronts  of 
Roger  Williams'  offending — one  of  the  procuring  causes  of 
his  cruel  banishment — was  the  fact,  that  he  maintained  the 
insufficiency  of  the  King's  Charter  to  entitle  settlers  to  the 
soil  ?  §     And  what  induced  him  to  be  so  zealous  about  such 

*  Bacon's  Histor.  Discourses,  p.  34.  Mr.  B.  should  remember,  that 
he  has  admitted  in  the  same  volume,  that  even  David  Brainerd  could  be 
a  slanderer,  p.  245.  This  is  leaving  himself  a  very  narrow  chance  in- 
deed ! 

t  Ibid.  p.  330. 

X  Was  Xew  Haven  fairly  purchased  ?  See  Drake's  Old  Ind.  Chron. 
p.  156. 

§  To  show  how  long  this  continued  a  touchy  point,  see  Bulkley's  ela- 


408  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

a  matter,  if  a  different  doctrine  were  not  prevalent  in  his 
day?  Did  the  Indians  put  such  a  metaphysical  crotchet 
into  his  head  ?  j^las!  they  could  not  reason  like  Mr.  Bacon  ; 
and  so  Mr.  Knowles  loathly  admits,  that  Williams'  book 
upon  the  subject  was  *' probably  called  forth  by  some  ex- 
pression of  the  opposite  doctrine.'"*  Perhaps  some  may  think, 
from  such  a  confident  assertion  as  is  quoted  by  Mr.  Young 
from  the  lips  of  Gov,  Winslow  f  of  Plymouth,  about  the  pur- 
chase of  Indian  lands  in  that  colony,  that  Massachusetts  onlif 
must  bear  the  blame  and  shame,  of  controverting  and  con- 
demning Roger  Williams,  for  his  argument  against  a  mon- 
arch's right  to  give  away  soil  he  no  more  owned  than  he  did 
the  moon.  But  Mr.  Felt  declares  that  Mr.  Williams'  doc- 
trine was  "the  occasion  of  much  controversy,"  "both  at 
Plymouth  and  Salem. ''t 

Non  nostrum  inter  vos,  tantas  componere  lites.  I  must 
leave  such  contrarieties  of  statement  where  I  found  them, 
and  proceed. 

It  will  doubtless  be  esteemed  owing  to  the  perversities  of 
my  Episcopal  vision,  but  I  cannot  refrain  from  saying,  that, 
in  their  sentiments  about  the  virtue  of  a  royal  patent  in 
giving  away  territory,  the  Puritans  exhibit  another  of  their 
points  of  similarity  with  the  Papists.  The  Pope  could  give 
away  territory  for  the  Jesuit :  the  King  could  give  away  ter- 
ritory for  the  Puritan.  Both  were  equally  well  satisfied 
with  the  endowment,  with  its  morality,  and  its  efficiency. 
Each  could  persecute  the  opponent  of  his  sovereign  claim, 
under  such   supreme  authority.     What  the   Papists   did  in 

borate  essay  in  1724,  to  prove  that  the  Indians  had  no  right  to  the  soil, 
and  that  his  ancestors  were  not  fools  enough  to  suppose  they  had.  Bulk- 
ley  tries  to  come  down  like  a  regular  trump. — Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  ser. 
iv.  159. 

*  Knowles'  Wil'iams,  p.  60. 

t  Young's  Chronicles,  p.  259,  note. — See  also  Note  126. 

t  Felt's  Salem,  p.  17. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  409 

South  America,  and  Mexico  especially,  need  not  be  particu- 
larized. The  making  such  an  opponent  the  victim  of  public 
accusation  and  banishment,  is  one  of  Puritanism's  earliest 
sins  in  North  America.  Roger  Williams'  opinions  about 
the  Charter,  as  conferring  no  title  to  foreign  soil,  formed 
the  basis  of  ''  the  first  article  in  his  indictment."*  There 
is  no  evading  this  awkward  and  damning  fact :  it  is  stamped 
upon  Puritan  records  with  a  truly  Indian  dye. 

And  there  is  the  more  reason  to  believe  its  truth ;  for 
the  Puritans  manifested  what  may  be  called  a  proclivity  for 
the  doctrine  which  produced  it,  before  they  reached  these 
shores.  The  question  about  a  right  to  Indian  territory,  was 
no  novelty.  It  had  been  discussed  by  them  in  England  t — 
or,  rather,  its  discussion  had  been  forced  upon  them  by  ob- 
jectors. And  what  was  the  answer  then,  when  there  was 
no  royal  patent  under  whose  broad  ban  they  might  plead 
more  safely,  and  in  such  a  flattering  v»'ay  that  royalty's  self 
would  be  beguiled  to  silence  ?  It  was  plumply  this  :  "  This 
savage  people  ruleth  over  many  lands,  without  title  or  prop- 
erty, [A  petitio  principii  at  the  outset ;]  for  they  inclose  no 
ground,  neither  have  they  cattle  to  maintayne  it,  but  remove 
their  dwellings  as  they  have  occasion,  [and  Nomades  require 
evidently  a  great  extent  of  what  may  be  called  loose  territo- 
ry,] or  as  they  can  prevail  against  their  neighbor.  And 
why  may  not  Christians  have  liberty  to  go  and  dwell  amongst 
them,  in  their  waste  lands  and  woods,  (leaving  them  such 
places  as  they  have  manured  for  their  corn,)  as  lawfully  as 
Abraham  did  among  the  Sodomites, "|  This  is  by  a  Puritan 
parson,  afterwards  settled  in  the  very  town  whence  Roger 

*  Benedict's  Baptists,  i.  454,  note. — Sav.  Wint.  i,  122. — So  Connec- 
ticut was  claimed  by  the  same  warrant. — Hutch.  Hist.  i.  46. 

t  Walker's  Independency,  Pt.  iii.  p.  22. 

X  Hutch.  Collect,  p.  30.  Compare  Bulkley  in  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st 
ser.  iv.  159.  Also,  2d  ser.  viii.  86.  And  3d  ser.  iii.  331.  Also,  Walk- 
er's Independency,  Pt.  iii,  22. 


410  REVIEW  OP^  THE  PURITANS. 

Williams  was  banished  ;  and  he  ought  to  have  remembered 
Abraham's  deed  in  fee  simple,  in  the  best  of  all  registers,  and 
from  the  top  of  all  authority,  "  Arise,  walk  throughTheland, 
in  the  length  of  it  and  in  the  breadth  of  it ;  for  I  will  give 
it  unto  thee."*  Such  sophistry  about  the  case  of  Abraham, 
might  easily  introduce  greater  sophistry,  under  a  sanction 
vastly  inferior  ;  and  that  sophistry,  (for  a  wrong  cause  always 
uses  force  or  passion  in  preference  to  cool  argument,)  could 
angrily  defend  itself,  by  the  decree  of  a  Court  and  the  sacri- 
fice of  a  victim.  This  explains  the  case  and  the  fate  of  Roger 
Williams  to  the  full,  and  I  need  advert  to  them  no  longer. 

Still,  I  suppose,  notwithstanding  such  difficulties,  great 
names  will  be  quoted,  and  a  great  clamor  raised  to  show 
that  the  Indians  were  fairly  dealt  by ;  and  Mr.  Bacon 
will  stand  ready,  as  the  procession  and  the  shout  go  forward, 
to  cry  out  against  every  refractory  knee  which  does  not  do 
them  homage:  just  as  he  would  do,  if  he  were  a  Romanist 
in  some  Romish  land,  and  the  host  were  passing  by.  Let 
me  say  then,  that  if  stiff  allegations  can  be  found  by  scores, 
and  here  and  there  some  straggling  deed  of  sale,  that  satis- 
faction will  not  quite  be  given.  Hutchinson,  on  one  of  his 
pages,  shows  that  such  deeds  might  be  virtually  extorted  ;t 
that  an  Indian  brain  might  conceive  such  a  possibility  and 
act  upon  it — nay,  act  upon  it  bloodily,  as  an  outrageous 
wrong.  It  is  thus  he  explains  the  war  of  King  Philip. — 
"  Philip  was  a  man  of  a  high  spirit,  and  could  not  bear  to 
see  the  English  of  New  Plymouth  extending  their  settle- 
ments over  the  dominions  of  his  ancestors;  and  although  his 
father  had,  at  one  time  or  other,  conveyed  to  them  all  that 
they  were  possessed  of,  yet  he  had  sense  enough  to  distin- 
guish a  free,  voluntary  covenant,  from  one  made  under  a 

*  Gen.  xiii.  17.     Compare  Gen.  xii.  1,  7. 

t  Compare  such  a  submission,  e.  g.  as  was  drawn  out  of  the  Indians 
at  Ipswich,  and  consummated  by  "  a  pot  full  of  wine." — Felt's  Ipswich, 
pp.  4,  5. — Who  then  taught  the  Indians  to  love  strong  drink  ? 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  41 J 

sort  of  duresse,  and  he  could  never  rest  until  he  brought  on 
the  war  which  ended  in  his  destruction."*  Callender  insists 
upon  it  that  King  Philip  went  to  war  reluctantly. t  Would 
he  ever  have  attempted  to  vindicate,  by  so  dreaded  an  expe- 
dient, any  but  enormous  wrongs. t  Had  he  and  his  been 
treated  as  the  Indians  of  Pennsylvania  were  treated  by  Wil- 
liam Penn,  might  not  his  alliance  with  the  Puritans,  like 
that  of  Pennsylvania,  have  lasted  unbroken  for  more  than 
seventy  years  ?§ 

There  is  proof,  fortunately,  that  the  Indians  of  Massa- 
chusetts could  be  quiet  and  friendly,  if  dealt  by  honestly — 
a  fair  bargain  made  with  them  for  their  lands,  and  a  fair 
compensation,  not  promised  merely,  but  actually  rendered. 
Look,  for  example,  into  Shattuck's  History  of  the  Town  of 
Concord,  and  you  will  see  an  array  of  sales  and  purchases, 
which  you  will  not  find  in  the  histories  of  some  other  Puri- 
tan settlements.'-'  And  in  the  history  of  the  same  town, 
there  is  a  corresponding  absence  of  Indian  hostilities.  And 
why  is  this?  Another  historian  of  Concord  explains  it 
most  significantly.  "  The  settlers,"  says  he,  "  never  had 
any  contest  with  the  Indians ;  nor  were  there  ever  by  them 
but  three  persons  killed  within  the  limits  of  the  town.  It  is 
supposed,  '  That  the  cause  of  their  quietness  was  owing, 
in  a  good  measure,  to  the  full   satisfaction  they  received  at 

127  See  Note  127. 

*  Hutchinson,  i.  2.58,  259.  Compare  page  252.  Compare  also,  R. 
I.  Hist.  Coll.  iii.  22,  46.  and  the  references  there  given. 

t  R.  I.  Hist.  Coll.  iv.  126,  note. 

t  One  of  these  enormous  wrongs  was  the  siezure  and  ill-treatment  of 
his  brother,  on  bare  suspicion — treatment  which  occasioned  his  death. 
Could  they  expect  uneducated  savages  to  forgive  such  things,  when  they, 
the  best  of  Christians,  could  never  forgive  the  Pequots  ? — Hutch.  Hist.  i. 
252,  note. 

§  Proud's  Pennsylvania,  i.  212.  Watson's  Philadelphia,  pp.  93, 128, 
129.     Watson  says  eighty  years. 


412  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

the  time  of  purchase.'  "*  Ah  !  if  other  settlers  had  resem- 
bled those  of  Concord,  it  would  not  have  been  necessary  for 
Mather  to  put  on  record  such  quarrels,  as  he  owns,  (in  one 
instance  at  least,)  began  about  alleged  encroachments  on 
Indian  lands;  nor  would  he  have  dared,  with  the  common 
presumption  of  his  sect,  to  arrogate  the  interference  of  the 
Almighty  in  behalf  of  them,  and  say,  *' God  ended  the  con- 
troversy, by  sending  the  small-pox  among  the  Indians."! 
Oh,  this  cruel  doubling  of  God's  chastisements,  by  calling 
them  direct  judgments  in  vindication  of  themselves  !  how 
characteristic  of  the  Puritans,  and  of  multitudes  who  now 
inherit  a  Puritan  temper  without  the  name  !  But  it  flowed 
naturally  from  their  opinionated  self-consequence.  Of  those 
who  presumed  to  diifer  from  their  platform,  (assuming  but 
the  right  they  themselves  exercised  and  defended,  when  they 
left  England  and  the  Church  of  England,)  this  was  their  pon- 
tifical style  of  speaking,  not  outdone  in  the  Epistles  of  the 
Vatican :  '*  Men  have  set  up  their  thresholds  by  God's 
threshold,  and  their  post  by  God's  post."  And,  again,  such 
persons  "  do  no  better  than  set  up  an  altar  against  the 
Lord's  altar."!  It  is  any  thing  but  surprising,  that  such 
people  looked  upon  themselves,  as  the  only  true  portion  of 
the  Church  on  earth,  and  as  receiving  New  England,  as  it 
were,  from  God's  own  hands,  in  the  manner  the  Jews  re- 
ceived Canaan.  Their  threshold,  their  post,  their  altar,  [no 
quarrel  with  the  Puseyite  word  in  those  days]  were  God's; 
and  he  had,  he  would  have,  he  could  have,  no  others.  But 
oh,  the  wonder,  the  wonder  of  all  wonders,  that  such  people 
could  upbraid  Ap.  Laud  as  an  exclusive ! 

*  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  ser.  i.  241.  Compare  Du  Pratz's  Louisiana, 
ii.  206. 

t  Mather's  Indian  Troubles,  p.  23. 

X  Neal's  N.  Eng.  ii.  356. — It  is  curious,  to  the  philosophical  observer 
of  human  nature,  to  find  their  complaints  of  altars  against  their  own  altar, 
made  against  their  Independent  brethren  in  England  by  a  Presbyterian ! 
—Edwards'  Antapologia,  p.  199,  200. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  413 

It  is  too  easy  to  be  discursive  on  such  topics,  and  I 
must  therefore  close  this  branch  of  my  subject  with  two  au- 
authorities,  one  of  which  goes  point-blank  against  the  doc- 
trine, that  the  Indians  were  compensated  for  their  lands, 
and  the  other  is  as  effective  for  the  same  purpose,  though 
less  direct.  The  first  is  that  of  S.  G.  Drake,  Esq.,  whose 
research  into  Indian  history  has  not  been  surpassed  in  our 
day,  if  in  any  other.  This  is  one  of  his  impracticable 
memoranda.  "  These  Indian  places,  3IisJiam,  since  Charles- 
town  ;  Matapan,  since  Dorchester ;  and  Shawnuit,  since 
Boston;  are  intruded  into  and  possessed  by  Englishmen; 
whose  descendants,  to  this  day,  hold  thern  with  as  much  right 
as  another  people  would,  who  should  come  now  and  crowd 
them  out,  and  whose  manners  and  occupations  might  be 
as  different  from  theirs,  as  those  of  their  ancestors  were 
from  those  of  the  Indians."*  The  other  authority  I  sup- 
pose to  be  Dr.  Bentley  of  Salem,  one  of  the  best  antiqua- 
rians of  his  day.  He  says  of  the  inhabitants  of  Salem,  e.  g., 
(whom  Drake,  by  the  way,  pronounces  intruders,)  that  "  as 
soon  as  they  heard  of  Penn's  purchase,  they  purchased  their 
lands  of  such  Indians  as  they  could  find,  though  fifty  years 
afterwards,  still  remembering  the  doctrine  of  the  patent."! 

Could  those  people  who  were  seventeen  years'  long 
unable  to  recollect  '' the  principal  end"  of  their  emigration, 
the  conversion  of  the  natives ;  twenty-six  years'  long  heedless, 
even  in  an  Indian's  eye,  of  the  Gospel's  value  ;t  and  fifty 
years'  long  unable  to  recollect  their  debt  for  the  soil  they 
trod  upon ;  have  cared  over-much  for  Indian  claims  or  for 
Indian  rights,  for  Indian  bodies  or  for  Indian  souls  ? 

*  Drake's  Old  Ind.  Chronicle,  p.  155. 

t  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  ser,  viii.  4.  See  also  Lincoln's  Hingham,  p. 
159,  etc.  for  similar  conduct. — And  yet  Bogue  and  Bennet  have  the 
hardihood  to  say,  that  Penn  imitated  the  Puritans  in  his  treatment  of  the 
Indians !  !     Hist,  of  Dissenters,  ii.  431. 

X  Hutchinson,  i.  150. 


414  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

I  turn  now  to  a  brief  consideration  of  one  or  two  topics 
more,  and  this  letter  shall  then  close. 

II. — My  second  point  is,  that  the  Puritans,  in  their  treat- 
ment of  the  Indians,  began  with  guns  rather  than  the 
Gospel.'-^ 

Roger  Williams,  heretic  though  he  were,  began  more 
sagaciously  and  kindly.  "  My  soul's  desire,"  said  he,  "was 
to  do  the  natives  good."*  And  with  him,  this  was  not  mere 
solemn  language,  to  be  recorded  in  a  diary,  or  to  go  home  to 
England  in  what  would  be  termed  an  Evangelical  epistle. — 
He  showed  his  faith  by  his  works.t  Notwithstanding,  with 
true  Christian  humility,  he  ascribed  the  virtue  he  practised 
to  "the  healthful  Spirit  of  God's  grace."  "God  was 
pleased,"  he  continued,  "  to  give  me  a  painful,  patient 
spirit,  to  lodge  with  them  in  their  filthy,  smoky  holes,  (even 
while  I  lived  at  Plymouth  and  Salem,)  to  gain  their  tongue." 

And  what  was  the  result  of  such  condescending  Christian 
treatment?  Neither  more  nor  less  than  this,  that  Roger 
Williams,  evp.?i  after  his  banishment,  was  able  to  be  of  more 
service  to  Massachusetts,  than  regiments  of  dragoons  or 
parks  of  artillery.  Had  he  been  as  vindictive  as  the  cruel 
State  which  banished  him,  and  never  relaxed  in  her  imperial 
inflexibility,  he  might  almost  have  fulfilled  the  hyperbole  of 
Hushai,  to  the  letter,  and  dragged  Boston  into  the  ocean. t 
But  he  had  the  true  forgiving  spirit  of  his  Master,  and 
returned  good  for  evil.§  Two  sentences  which  he  wrote  in 
his  Letter  of  Vindication  to  Major  Mason,  are  worth  all  the 
religious  diaries  which  have  been  written  since  the  days  of 
Martin  Luther.     Indeed,   I  know  not  any   higher  or   fairer 

'35  See  Note  128. 

*  Knowles'  Williams,  p.  52. 

t  He  "  spared  not  purse,  nor  pains,  nor  hazards." — R.  I.  Hist.  Coll.  iii. 
153. 

t  2  Sam.  xvii.  13.         §  Hutch.  Hist.  i.  42.     Benedict's  Bap.  i.  477. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  415 

testimony  of  exalted  Christian  virtue,  than  they  afford,  since 
the  time  when  apostolic  martyrs  counted  not  their  lives  dear, 
so  that  they  might  testify  of  the  Gospel  of  the  grace  of  God. 
For,  in  practical  religion,  active  benevolence  to  those  we  can 
neglect,  is  the  foremost  of  excellencies  ;  standing  even  before 
freedom  from  the  world's  taint  and  corruption.*  The  sen- 
tences alluded  to,  (true  patents  of  Christian  nobility,  worth 
those  of  a  dozen  dukedoms,)  are  these  :  *'  When  God 
wondrously  preserved  me,  and  helped  me  to  break  to  pieces 
thePequots'  negociation  and  design,  and  to  make,  promote, 
and  finish,- by  many  travells  and  charges,  the  English  league 
with  the  Nahiggonsiks  and  Monhiggins  [Narragansetts  and 
Mohegans]  against  the  Pequois,  and  that  the  English  forces 
marched  up  to  the  Nahiggonsik  country  against  thePequots, 
I  gladly  entertained  at  my  house  in  Providence,  the  general 
Stoughton  and  his  officers,  and  used  my  utmost  care  that  all 
his  officers  and  soldiers  should  be  well  accommodated  with 
us.  I  marched  up  with  them  to  the  Nahiggonsik  Sachems, 
and  brought  my  countrymen  and  the  barbarians.  Sachems 
and  Captains,  to  a  mutuall  confidence  and  complacence 
each  in  other."t 

Such  was  the  way  in  which  a  genuine  Christian  began 
his  career  with  the  Indians,  and  such  was  his  triumph  over 
their  barbarism,  and  the  cruelty  of  his  unrelenting  persecu- 
tors. Truly  his  godliness,  coupled  with  contentment  amid 
all  the  roughnesses  of  his  destiny,  brought  him  great  gain 
at  last.  If  Roger  Williams  had  never  lived  another  day, 
after  recording  such  a  passage  in  his  chequered  life,  he 
mio-ht  have  said  his  Nunc  dimittis,  and  laid  him  down  to  die, 
as  one  of  the  veriest  Christian  heroes  who  ever  adorned  the 
doctrine  of  God  our  Saviour — or,  if  I  may  attend  to  criti- 
cism in  such  a  page  as  this,  the  doctrine  of  the  Saviour  our 
God.| 

*  James  i.  27.  t  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  ser.  i.  277. 

X  Titus,  if.  10.     See  the  Greek 


416  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

But  how  was  it  with  others,  who,  as  Mather  says  in  his 
Indian  Troubles,  "  proposed  not  so  much  worldly  as  spir- 
itual ends  in  their  undertaking,"  and  who,  *'  ayming  at  the 
Conversion  of  the  Indians  [his  own  Italics]  and  the  esta- 
blishment of  the  worship  of  God  in  purity,  did  therefore 
transport  themselves  and  families  into  this  howling  wilder- 
ness" ?*  Did  they  begin  as  Roger  Williams  did?  Alas, 
how  differently  !  Mather  who  professes  an  exact  acquaint- 
ance with  Indian  history,  admits  that  the  Indians  had  been 
maltreated  by  his  countrymen,  who  touched  on  the  Massa- 
chusetts shore  on  their  fishing  expeditions,  before  the  arrival 
of  "  the  Pilgrims."  The  Indians,  therefore,  he  says,  were 
in  a  state  of  exasperation  against  the  English,  when  "  the 
Pilgrims"  arrived.  Well  then,  there  was  all  the  more  reason 
that  they,  such  matchless  emigrants  for  **  spiritual  ends," 
should  have  imitated  such  as  Williams,  and  approached 
them  as  familiarly  and  blandly  as  he  did.  Williams  ac- 
quired such  influence  over  their  rugged  natures,  that  he 
could  venture  among  them,  and  stay  *'  three  days  and 
nights,"t  when  they  were  fresh  from  battle — when,  as  he 
says,  their  "  hands  and  arms  methought  reeked  with  the 
blood  of  my  countrymen."!  But  his  superiors  \n  proposing 
(Mather  hits  the  idea  exactly,  they  'proposed  many  a  good 
deed  they  never  thought  of  exemplifying)  to  act  a  Christian 
part  towards  the  poor  Indians,  no  sooner  receive  a  few  harm- 
less arrows  from  them,  than  a  quick  reply  comes  from  a 
musket,  followed  by  a  death-shriek,  the  forerunner  to  a 
thousand  more.§     Well  might  John  Robinson  rebuke  them, 

*  Indian  Troubles,  p.  5. 

t  Roger  Williams  could  live  in  peace  with  them,  without  difficulty. 
So  Richard  Smith  lived  in  their  very  midst,  40  years,  without  molesta- 
tion, when  they  were  30,000  in  number. — (Drake  O.  I.  Chron.  157  ) 
Well  might  Williams  pray  the  Puritans  to  consider  "  Whether  it  be  not 
only  possible, but  very  easy,  to  live  and  die  in  peace  with  the  natives," — 
R.  I.  Hist.  Coll.  iii.  154. 

X  Letter  to  Maj.  Mason.  §  Mather's  Troubles,  p.  6. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  417 

as  he  afterwards  did,  in  this  memorable  language,  "  O  how 
happy  a  thing  had  it  been,  that  you  had  converted  some  be- 
fore you  killed  any  !"*  They  ought  to  have  received  far 
sharper  rebukes  from  their  own  consciences.  But  no,  the 
spirit  which  developed  itself  with  powder  and  ball,  continued 
to  follow  the  same  direction.  A  foolish  Indian  bravado, 
even,  is  answered  in  the  temper  of  a  modern  duelist.  The 
sachem  of  those  Narragansets,t  (whom  Roger  Williams  con- 
ciliated without  perhaps  an  angry  word,)  provoked,  no 
doubt,  by  some  of  his  evil  information,  sent  a  bundle  of 
arrows,  wrapped  in  a  rattle-snake  skin  to  an  Indian  at  Ply- 
mouth, whom  Mather  himself  allows  to  have  been  a  knave. f 
The  Governor  is  told,  that  it  signifies  ''  Enmity  and  War." 
He  receives  the  communication  in  its  worst  construction,  at 
once  fires  up,  and  without  the  slightest  effort  to  soften  his  bar- 
barian neighbor's  imagined  wrath,  sends  the  rattle-snake's 
skin  back  filled  with  powder  and  shot,  and  adds  this  furious 
message,  '  That  if  he  had  shipping  at  hand,  he  would  en- 
deavour to  beat  the  Indians  out  of  their  country.'^ 

Nor  was  this  the  worst  result  of  an  intercourse,  which 
began  with  such  violence,  that  even  an  occasional  interlude 
of  peace  only  tended  to  heighten  the  suspicion  and  aliena- 
tion of  the  parties.  '  What  is  the  reason,'  said  one  of  the 
Sachems  to  the  English,  '  that  when  we  come  to  visit  you, 
you  hold  the  mouths  of  your  guns  against  us?'  And  the 
answer,  so  ominously  hypocritical  ||  as  to  make  even  a  barba- 

*  Drake's  Old  Chronicle,  p.  155.     Sparks'  Am.  Biog.  1st  ser.  v.  37. 

t  This  was  Canonicus,  one  of  the  best  friends  the  English  ever  had. 
R.  I.  Hist.  Coll.  iii.  42. — Canonicus  solemnly  declared  to  Roger  Will- 
iams, he  had  never  done  the  EngUsh  any  wrong. — R.  I.  Hist.  Coll.  iii. 
47. — Finally,  a  friendly  Indian  accompanied  the  embassy. — Davis'  Mor- 
ton, p.  75,  note. — Young's  Chronicles,  p.  281. 

X  Neal  says  "  an  arch  knave." — N.  Eng.  i,  97. 

§  Maiher's  Troubles,  pp.  10,11. 

II  The  word  "hypocritical"  may  seem  too  hard.  If  so,  let  a  later 
instance  of  Puritan    diplomacy  be  compared  with  this,  to  bear  it  out. 


418  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

rian  shake  liis  head,  was,  '  Such  is  the  English  manner  of 
entertaining  friends.'* 

O,  if  such  records  pertained  to  the  lives  of  the  papist- 
ical Hernando  Cortez  and  Francis  Pizarro,  we  should  be 
told  that  every  item  was  in  perfect  keeping — that  this  was 
just  what  might  be  expected  from  a  religion,  which  claims 
foreign  territory  by  virtue  of  inherent  saintship,  and  is  au- 
thorized to  maintain  its  claims  by  force  and  arms.t  How, 
then,  are  such  approaches  towards  the  Indians,  from  those 
proposing  to  save  their  souls,  to  be  pronounced  free  from  the 
slightest  taint  of  worldliness  ?  Cortez  and  Pizarro  did  not 
even  begin  as  bad  as  the  Puritans  did,  /.  e.,  with  open  war. 
In  the  end,  however,  the  Mexicans  and  Peruvians  were 
sleeping  in  bloody  graves,  in  a  soil  over  which  they  or  their 
myrmidons  walked  the  masters.  The  Puritans  shed  Indian 
blood,  almost  immediately  ;  and  the  result  was  precisely  the 
same  as  with  the  wretched  proprietors  of  Peru  and  Mexico  : 
the  soil  changed  hands  entirely,  and  its  original  owners  died 
not  deaths  of  peace;  many  of  them  died  in  the  bondage  of 
slavery  in  distant  lands. ^^^     Even  the   son  of  the  greatest 

'29  See  Note  129. 

Here  is  a  deliberately  drawn  article  of  Puritan  management,  to  make 
their  private  concert  seem  like  a  providential  unity,  and  thus  induce  a 
superstitious  people  to  think  they  were  half  inspired.  "  That  the  magis- 
trates (as  far  as  might  be)  ripen  their  consultations  beforehand,  that  their 
vote  in  public  might  bear,  as  the  voice  of  God."  (Savage's  Wint.  i.  178.) 
Such  Machiavellian  art  as  this  article  recommends,  seems  fit  for  a  council 
of  Jesuits  only.  Still  I  have  heard  of  matters  concocted  in  a  "  conference- 
room  "  a  night  previous,  over  which  the  blessing  of  God  was  next  day 
asksd,  as  if  the  suggestions  of  the  moment.  And  I  cannot  but  think,  in 
such  circumstances,  of  the  old  "  article  of  faith"  just  quoted. 

*  Mather's  Troubles,  p.  15. — In  a  salute  the  mouth  of  the  gun  is  pointed 
upwards,  not  at  the  person  saluted.  The  answer,  however,  was  worthy 
"  that  Puritan-Papist,  the  Jesuit." 

t  This  is  one  of  the  six  principles  of  Independency,  recorded  by 
Walker.— Hist.  Indep.  Pt.  iii.  22. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  419 

Sachem  and  chieftain,  the  Indians  ever  knew,  (King  PhiJip 
of  Mount  Hope,)  is  doomed  to  death  in  cold  blood,  and 
receives  banishment  and  slavery  as  a  boon.*  He  was  but 
nine  years  old,  and  still,  if  the  advice  of  Puritan  parsons 
had  prevailed,  the  innocent  child  would  have  gone  like  a  lamb 
to  the  slaughter  ! ! !  t  Nevertheless,  we  are  required  to  be- 
lieve, that  the  Jesuits  or  Inquisitors,  who  are  suspected  of 
contriving  such  a  death  as  that  of  Don  Carlos,  son  of  Philip 
II.,  are  monsters  of  iniquity  ;  while  they  who  contrived  the 
death  of  the  son  of  Philip  of  Mount  Hope,  are  to  shine  as 
the  brightness  of  the  firmament,  and  as  the  stars,  forever  and 
ever  !  O,  the  astounding  changes  of  that  Great  Day,  when 
all  the  crooked  passages  in  human  history  shall  be  made 
straight,  and  its  rough  places  plain  ! 

This  last  specification  reminds  me  that  my  next  head, 
and  the  only  one  that  can  further  be  attended  to,  (for  the 
present  at  least,)  may  as  well  be  now  brought  forward.  It 
might  occupy  more  space  than  any  of  the  others,  but  my 
limits  warn  me  to  compress  it,  if  possible,  into  the  briefest. 

III.  My  third  and  last  point  in  this  melancholy  argu- 
ment accordingly  is,  that  the  Puritans  treated  the  Indians 
with  excessive  cruelty.  | 

*  With  all  his  special  pleading,  Mr.  Everett  cannot  stand  this,  but 
bursts  out  against  it  quite  Demosthenically.  See  Orations,  &c.  pp.  611, 
612.  With  this  horrid  passage  in  history,  compare  the  language  of  a 
conscientious,  though  perhaps  not  formally  Christian  savage.  "  We," 
said  he,  "  could  easily  be  too  hard  faj;  the  English  ;  but,"  striking  his 
breast,  "  the  Englishmen's  God  makes  us  afraid  here."  Mass.  Hist.  Coll. 
3d  ser.  i.  95. 

t  Baylies'  Plymouth,  iii.  190,  191,  and  notes. 

t  King  Charles  II., in  his  Commission  of  1664,  told  Massachusetts  to 

her  face,  that  the  natives  entered  this  complaint  to  him  against  her. 

Hutch.  Hist.  i.  459.  Mr.  Halkett,  in  his  Notes  on  the  N.  American  In- 
dians, though  disposed  to  make  every  allowance  for  the  Puritans,  distinct- 
ly says,  "  Enough  may  be  gathered  from  them  [their  own  historians]  to 
satisfy  every  unprejudiced  reader,  that  the  Indians  were  treated  by  the 
Europeans  with  extreme  injustice." — Notes,  &c.  p.  122. 


420  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

It  is  remarkable,  how  some  particulars  in  this  depart- 
ment of  their  history,  resemble,  upon  a  smaller  scale,  some 
of  the  saddest  scenes  of  the  history  of  Europe.  The  parallel 
just  drawn  between  the  fate  of  a  son  of  King  Philip  in  Spain, 
and  King  Philip  in  Rhode  Island,  is  painfully  obvious. 

And  who  can  fail  to  see  the  similarity  between  the  fates 
of  King  Charles  I.,  and  King  Miantonimoh  ?  Charles 
would  never  have  suffered,  let  men  denounce  Cromwell  as 
they  choose,  if  the  Puritan  ministers  had  been  as  resolutely 
determined  to  save  him,  as  the  Presbyterian  ministers  (some 
of  them)  pretended,  and  affirmed,  that  they  themselves  were. 
But,  as  in  days  of  yore,  Gibbon  testifies,*  that  "  the  Arian 
clergy  surpassed  in  religious  cruelty  the  king  and  his  Van- 
dals :"  so  here,  the  Puritan  ministers  seemed  to  inflict  death 
with  a  hardihood  from  which  the  magistrates  shrank.  They 
advised,  and  urged,  and  virtually  decreed  the  death  of  the 
noble  Miantonimoh  ;t  and  worked  the  magistrates  up  to  the 
fearful  deed,  by  suggesting  to  them  that  the  actual  execution 
should  take  place  out  of  their  jurisdiction.  They  consented, 
provided  "  some  discreet  and  faithfull  persons"  see  the  deed 
effectually  done  ;|  and  a  tomahawk  was  buried  in  Miantoni- 
moh's  brain,  while  he  was  journeying  unsuspectingly  as  a 
prisoner.  ^^° 

This  version  of  the  subject.  Dr.  Morse,  with  such  can- 
dor as  is  found  in  other  Puritan  writers,  repudiates;  and 
glosses  the  matter  over  with  the  easy  ignoramus,  "  I  know 
of  no  foundation  for  this  unfavorable  representation  of  the 

130  See  Note  130. 

*  Dec.  and  Fall.  chap.  38  ;  or  vol  vi.  273. 

t  The  editor  of  Gorton  says  the  secret  of  this  clerical  counsel  is,  that 
Miantonimoh  gave  shelter  to  the  heretics  of  Massachusetts.  There  is 
verisimilitude  in  this,  to  say  the  least. — R.  I.  Hist.  Coll.  ii.  155,  155. 
See  also  editor  of  Winthrop,  Sav.  Wint.  ii.  133.— R.  I.  Hist.  Coll.  iii. 
39—43. 

X  Hazard's  Collect,  ii.  13. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  401 

affair."*  But  Dr.  Trumbull  is  more  candid,  and  admits  it; 
and  admits  too  the  instrumentality  of  the  ministers. t  Other 
authorities  may  be  found  in  my  references  ;t  and  the  follow- 
ing remark  of  the  Hon.  Mr.  Savage  clinches  this  matter  and 
a  hundred  more  :  "  Whenever  any  course  that  might  proceed 
to  a  result  of  extreme  injustice,  cruelty,  or  tyranny,  was 
contemplated  by  the  civil  rulers,  the  sanction  of  the 
churches,  or  of  the  elders,  was  usually  solicited,  and  too 
often  obtained. "§  "  The  fate  of  Agag,"  as  he  elsewhere 
says,  then  "  followed  of  course. "||  Theeditor  of  Winthrop's 
journal  could  see  this,  with  provoking  plainness ;  but  though 
the  Ji?^st  edition  of  Winthrop's  Journal  was  published  in 
1790,  Dr.  Morse  could  not  find  in  it  the  shadow  of  a  fact  so 
ghastly.  And  the  same  blindness  in  part  has  happened  unto 
Dr.  Morse's  Israel,  both  before  and  since. 

I  have  remarked  the  parallels  in  the  case  of  Philip's  son, 
and  Miantonimoh  :  the  dismemberment  and  extermination  of 
the  Pequots,  (a  whole  nation,)  reminds  one  strongly  of  the 
fate  of  Poland.  After  the  Pequots  had  been  administered 
upon  with  bayonets,  shot,  and  fire,^]  their  women  and  children 
slauorhtered,  and  their  wigwams  burnt,  they  were  summoned 
(a  wretched,  shivering  remnant)  to  Puritan  head-quarters, 
to  hear  their  final  earthly  doom.  There  were  only  about 
180  remaining  of  this  once  powerful    tribe.**     "Then," 

*  Morse's  Geog.  edit.  1792,  p.  236. 

t   Tnimbuirs  Connect,  i.  133,  134. 

t  R.  I.  Hist.  Coll.  ii.  155,  156.  Allen's  Diet,  581.  Sav.  Wint.  ii. 
131,  132.     Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  ser.  ix.  202. 

§  Sav.  Wint.  1.  284,  note.  |1  Ibid.  ii.  133,  note. 

IT  Mr.  Bacon  says  the  war  with  the  Pequots  was  "  as  righteous  as 
ever  was  waged." — ^^courses,  p.  330.  This  is  disputed. — R.  I.  Hist. 
Coll.  iii.  23. — Well  does  the'editor  of  Winthrop  say,"  Savages  are  hard- 
ly tamed  by  kindness  ;  never  by  severity." — Sav.  Wint.  i.  223,  note. 

**  Vincent's  narrative  shows,  how  coolly  and  deliberately  the  extermi- 
nation of  the  Pequots  was  resolved  on,  after  their  total  defeat  and  rout. 
Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  ser.  vi.  39,  40. 

19 


422  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

adds  the  cool  and  minute  Puritan  annalist,  "  were  there 
granted  to  Uncas,  Sachem  of  Moheag,  eighty,  and  to 
Miantonimoh,  Sachem  of  Narragansett,  eighty,  and  to  Nin- 
nicraft  twenty  men,  when  he  should  satisfy  for  a  mare  of 
Eltwood  Pomeroy's,  killed  by  some  of  his  men."*  Thus,  in 
a  single  breath,  a  whole  people  are  scattered  to  the  winds, 
and  a  lost  mare  compounded  for:  no  unapt  illustration  of 
Puritan  mercilessness  on  the  one  hand,  and  shilling  and 
penny  exactitude  on  the  other!  And  would  that  the  latter 
feature,  abounding  and  superabounding  as  it  did,  and  still 
does,  in  Puritania,  had  here  and  always  preponderated. — 
But  the  fell  revenge  which  sold  the  Pequots  into  bondage, 
was  not  satiated.  They  "  were  by  covenant  bound,  that 
they  should  no  more  inhabit  their  native  country."  Oh,  how 
could  they  forget  their  own  murmurs  against  those,  who 
made  their  native  country  uninhabitable  to  themselves! — 
Yet  they  did,  and  added  moreover  the  last  drop  to  the  cup 
of  a  homeless  Pequot's  misery.  They  denied  him,  and  that 
forever,  the  very  name  of  his  forefathers.!  And  their  char- 
ter, wanderers  though  they  called  themselves,  gave  them, 
the  while,  the  name,  the  protection,  and  the  freedom  of 
Englishmen !  Ah,  if  there  are  those  against  whom  the 
pagans  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  shall  rise  in  judgment,  may 
not  some  poor  Pequots  yet  testify  against  those,  who  to-day 
bemoaned  themselves  as  the  victims  of  oppression,  and  to- 
morrow annihilated  not  the  estates  and  the  liberty  only,  but 
the  very  name  of  their  own  victims — swept  them  from  the 
world,  as  with  the  besom  of  perdition. I 

The  case  of  Philip,  the  king  whose  throne  was  on  a 

»  Mather's  Troubles,  p.  39.     R.  I.  Hist.  Coll.  iii.  26. 

t  Drake's  Old  Indian  Chronicle,  p.  156.         # 

\  Pirates  never  were  guilty  of  a  bloodier  deed,  than  the  taking  thirty 
Indians  out  in  a  boat,  murdering  them  in  cold  blood,  and  then  throwing 
their  bodies  overboard  to  be  eaten  by  the  monsters  of  the  deep.  Yet 
such  was  a  Puritan  revel,  and  a  Puritan  historian  is  merry  over  it ;  speak- 
ing of  the  boat  that  took  them,  as  Charon's  ferry-boat ! — Drake's  Book 
of  the  Indians,  B  ii.  106 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  423 

mount  miserably  misnamed  for  him — Mount  Hope — fur- 
nishes, some  think,  a  fair  apology  for  Puritan  retributions. 
It  were  useless,  therefore,  for  me  to  speak  of  it  in  my  own 
language.  I  accordingly  quote  from  a  Puritan  retrospective 
review,  which  preceded  the  North  American:  "Philip 
viewed  them  with  jealousy,  and  for  this  was  called  a  perfidi- 
ous wretch.*  Every  epithet  was  applied  to  him,  which  the 
Roman  writers  apply  to  Hannibal  or  Jugurtha,  or  any  bar- 
barous prince,  who  fought  in  defence  of  his  own  country,  or 
for  a  while  kept  his  possessions  from  the  mighty  grasp  of 
their  iron  hand.  We  here  compare  small  things  with  great ; 
but  the  sentiment  applies  to  a  savage  warrior  of  these  west- 
ern regions,  who  made  every  effort  to  prolong  the  existence 
of  his  own  nation.  It  was  criminal  in  this  man,  as  his  ene- 
mies thought,  to  have  a  different  religion;  or  not  to  fall  in 
with  their  ideas  of  property,  when  they  wanted  his  estate. 
[This  clause  refers  aptly  to  my  first  head.]  This  might  have 
been  said  if  the  Indians  had  had  any  friends  to  assert  their 
claims ;  but  their  actions  are  recorded  by  those  wlio  wished 
to  make  them  odious.''f  A  page  or  two  onwards,  the  review- 
er informs  us,  that  Philip  was  hunted  like  a  wild  beast,  that 
when  shot  his  body  was  quartered  and  set  upon  poles,  his 
head  carried  as  a  trophy  to  Plymouth,  and  his  skull  preserved 
as  a  curiosity  for  future  generations!  J  Cruel,  cruel  fate — 
even  Mr.  Felt  is  moved  by  it,  and  exclaims,  "  Could  some  his- 
torians of  his  own  nation  have  described  the  principles  of  his 
policy,  and  the  traits  of  his  character,  they  would  have  pre- 
sented him  before  us  as  one  of  the  greatest  heroes  of  his  age.§ 

*  Mr.  Savage,  however,  hesitates  not  to  accuse  the  Puritans,  in  the 
shocking  case  of  Miantoniinoh,  of  loth  perfidy  and  cniehy  — Sav.  Wint, 
ii.  132,  Note. 

t  Monthly  Anthology,  1809,  vol.  vii.  415. 

t  Drake  says  that  Philip's  head  was  kept  hanging  for  twenty  years. 
— Book  of  the  Indians,  B.  iii.  p.  43. 

§  Felt's  Salem,  p.  255.  He  is  eloquent,  too,  over  the  sufferings  and 
death  of  Sassacus,  the  chief  of  the  Pequots,  pp.  104,  105.  "  His  patriot- 
ism," he  says,  "  was  of  high  order." 


424  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

But  it  is  impossible,  in  my  limits,  and  quite  needless  for 
my  purpose,  for  me  to  run  into  details  of  their  relentless 
severity,  whose  pr/es^s  could  indite  such  counsels  and  such 
triumphs  as  these  :  ''  Happy  shall  he  be  that  shall  reward 
them,  as  they  have  served  us,  and  cursed  be  he  that  shall  do 
the  work  of  the  Lord  negligently."* — "  Happy  were  they 
that  could  bring  in  their  heads  [of  the  Pequots]  to  the  Eng- 
lish."— "For  the  Lord  was  pleased  to  smite  our  enemies  in 
the  hinder  parts,  and  to  give  us  their  land  for  an  inheritance  ; 
who  remejiibered  us  in  our  low  estate,  and  redeemed  us  out 
of  our  enemies'  hands. "t  This  is  the  paean  for  the  burning 
wigwams,  and  the  expiring  groans  of  the  down-trodden  sav- 
age. But  the  cries  of  the  oppressed  were  louder  in  the  ears 
of  the  Lord  of  Sabaoth ;  and  the  day  of  reckoning  will  come, 
if  it  have  not  come  already.  If  a  resurrection  were  to  bring 
the  generation  of  Ward  and  Mather  from  their  graves,  they 
would  chant  no  paean  to  find  New  England  such  as  she  is 
now. 

I  will  quote  but  two  authorities  more ;  one  to  show  that 
the  direful  disposition  to  revenge  was  so  pervading  in  a  Pu- 
ritan breast,  that  it  infected  even  the  gentler  sex,  and  could 
be  restrained  by  no  solemnity;  another,  to  show  that  Puri- 
tanism itself,  in  a  moment  of  candor,  is  shocked  by  the  treat- 
ment of  the  Aborigines. 

The  first  is  from  Hutchinson's  History,  and  the  second 
from  Trumbull's  ;  and  the  two  are  quite  enough  to  set  a 
seal  upon  stronger  assertions  than  I  have  ventured  upon, 
had  I  chosen  to  use  them.  *'  Mr.  Increase  Mather,  in  a 
letter  to  Mr.  Cotton,  2J3d  5  mo.  1677,  [for  the  Puritans 
were  once  Quakerish  in  their  notions  of  dates,]  J  mentions 
an  instance  of  rage  against   two  prisoners  of  the   Eastern 

*  Ward's  Cobbler  of  Agawam.     New  edit.  p.  79. 

t  Mather's  Troubles,  pp.  38,  39,  41.  Mather,  in  his  Prevalency  of 
Prayer,  says  they  prayed  the  bullet  into  Philip's  heart !  p.  10. 

t  "  In  order  not  to  denote  the  months  as  the  [Roman]  Catholics  did." 
r-Felt's  Ipswich,  pp.  21.  22. 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  425 

Indians,  then  at  Marblehead,  a  fishing  town,  which  goes 
beyond  any  other  I  ever  heard  of.  '  Sabbath  day  was  se'n- 
night,  the  women  at  Marblehead  as  they  came  out  of  the 
meetinghouse,  [no  churches  in  those  days,]  fell  upon  two 
Indians  that  were  brought  in  as  captives,  and  in  a  tumultuous 
way  very  barbarously  murdered  them.'"*  '*  Though  the 
first  planters  of  New  England  and  Connecticut,"t  says 
Trumbull,  dragging  Connecticut  up  to  justice,  when  Dr. 
Bacon  |  would  fain  whiten  her  every  sin,  "  were  men  of  emi- 
nent piety  and  strict  morals;  yet,  like  other  good  men,  they 
were  subject  to  misconception  and  the  influence  of  passion. 
Their  beheading  sachems  whom  they  took  in  war,  kill- 
ing the  male  captives,  and  enslaving  the  women  and  chil- 
dren of  the  Pequots,  after  it  was  finished,  was  treating  them 
with  a  severity,  which,  on  the  benevolent  principles  of  Chris- 
tianity, it  will  be  difficult  ever  to  justify.  The  executing 
of  all  those  as  murderers,  who  were  active  in  killing  any 
of  the  English  people,  [when,  as  he  admits,  they  did  it  in 
war,  and  under  orders  from  their  native  prince,]  and  oblig- 
ing all  the  Indian  nations  to  bring  in  such  persons,  or  their 
heads,  was  an  act  of  severity  unpractised,  at  this  day,  by 
civilized  and  Christian  nations.  The  decapitation  of  their 
enemies,  and  the  setting  of  their  heads  upon  poles,  was  a 
kind  of  barbarous  triumph,  too  nearly  symbolizing  with  the 
examples  of  uncivilized  and  pagan  nations. "§ 

I  have  somewhere  read,  that  one  of  the  best  possible 
methods  to  disabuse  one's  self  of  Socinian  prejudices,  would 
be  to  read  the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  all  the  while  saying  to 
one's  self,  "Such    expressions    as    'The -Word  was  God' 

*  Hutchinson,  i.  277,  278,  note. 

t  Is  not  Connecticut  a  part  of  New  England  ?  Or  is  Dr.  Trumbull 
shy  of  the  fellowship  ? 

t  I  have  called  him  Mr.  Bacon,  as  he  has  no  title  in  the  books 
quote  d  But  the  newspapers,  1  see,  call  him  Doctor  ;  and  so  honor  to 
whom  honor,  &c. 

§  Trumbuirs  Connect,  i,  115.     Also  Note  131. 


426  REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

and  *  The  world  was  made  by  Him,'  &c.,  &c.,  are  asserted 
of  a  mere  mortal  like  me."  I  know  of  no  better  method  for 
disabusing  one's  self  of  a  proclivity  to  laud  Puritanism,  and 
hate  Episcopacy,  than  to  read  such  passages  as  I  have  given 
in  Puritan  history,  and  as  Trumbull  alludes  to,  all  the  while 
saying  to  one's  self,  "  These  are  the  doings  of  *  men  of  emi- 
nent piety  and  strict  morals,'  of  men,  in  fine,  who  thought 
themselves  the  ecclesiastical  nonpareils  of  the  world,  whose 
threshold  was  God's  threshold,  whose  post  was  his  post,  and 
whose  altar  was  his  altar — men  from  whom  the  most  com- 
plete specimens  of  human  virtue  were  to  be  looked  for,  who 
had  pleaded  for  toleration  and  charity  with  all  their  might,* 
and  fled  to  enjoy  and  to  exemplify  them,  thousands  and 
thousands  of  miles  along  the  tumbling  billows  of  the  main." 

Ah,  how  soon  would  such  a  reader  cry  out  to  his  ad- 
viser, ''  You  have  beguiled  me  !  These  are  not  the  deeds  of 
Puritans — meek  victims  of^'  Laudean  persecution.'  These 
are  the  foot-prints  of  the  old  '  Malignant  Party'  in  sheep's 
clothing.  Away  with  the  supposition,  that  they  who  made 
the  arches  of  heaven  ring  with  their  protests  against  op- 
pression, could  belie  themselves  so  outrageously  !" 

But  facts,  as  the  adage  goes,  are  stubborn  things.  Pu- 
ritan history  is  entered  upon  an  immutable  record  ;  for  the 
past.  Omnipotence  itself  cannot  change.  And  it  goes  to 
swell  the  proof  of  the  maxim,  that  truth  itself  is  stranger 
than  fiction.  Puritanism  in  England,  when  denouncing  the 
Church,  if  prophetically  assured  it  would  do  worse  than  its 
opponents,  no  doubt  would  have  answered,  as  Hazael  did, 
Is  thy  servant  a  dog  that  he  should  do  this  thing?  But  the 
future  made  Hazael  worse,  than  he  scorned  to  believe  a 
possibility.  And  how  did  Puritanism  fulfil  its  own  boasts? 
The  experience  of  the  Churchman,  and  the  Baptist,  and  the 
Quaker,  and  the  Papist,  and  the  Presbyterian,  and  the  In- 

*  Edwards'  Antapologia.  p.  280,  etc.  Edwards,  it  must  never  be 
forgotten,  is  a  Presbyterian  ! 


REVIEW  OF  THE  PURITANS.  427 

dian,  recorded  on  these  pages,  can  answer.  Sir  Richard 
Saltonstall  said  its  conduct  laid  it  very  low  in  the  hearts  of 
the  saints  in  England  ;  and  Dr.  Watts,  that  it  made  him  blush 
for  shame;  while  Baillie  announces,  with  the  solemnity  of  a 
fact,  that  the  opinion  of  its  more  than  ordinary  piety  had 
vanished.*  And  the  proof  is  cumulative,  if  the  answer 
must  be  lifted  to  a  louder  key.  May  Heaven  grant  that  it 
be  not  necessary,  and  that  the  descendants  of  the  Puritans, 
seeing  how  their  forefathers  proved  themselves  men  of  like 
passions  with  those  whom  they  condemned,  and  seeing  what 
they  themselves  are,  split  into  intestine  factions,  may  begin 
to  stoop  from  their  heights  of  pride,  and  learn  the  severest 
lesson  which  has  ever  been  taught  them ;  that  they  are  no 
more  pious  in  heart,  no  more  orthodox  in  principle,  no  more 
benevolent  in  life,  than  the  mass  of  Christians  which  sur- 
rounds them.t^^^ 


CONCLUSION. 


And  now,  I  suppose,  the  question  will  be  asked,  Having 
said  all  which  one  of  the  '  Malignant  Party'  can  say  to  dis- 
parage the  Puritans,  are  you  going  to  part  with  them,  and 
utter  no  words  in  their  praise  ?f 

And  my  reply  will  be  shorter,  much  shorter,  than  many 
may  expect.     In  the  first  place,  I  have  not  shown  myself  un- 

132  See  Note  132. 

*  Hutchinson's  Collect.  401,  402.  M.  H.  Coll.  1st  ser.  v.  201.~ 
Baillie's  Letters,  edit.  1775,  vol.  i.  438. — Sir  H.  Vane's  letter,  an  echo 
of  Saltonstall's.     Hutch.  Collect,  p.  137. 

t  Let  the  reader  here  compare  the  quotations  from  Dr.  Owen,  given 
in  Note  43.    Also  from  Milton,  p.  5. 

t  Compare  the  latter  part  of  Note  95. 


428  KEVIEVV  OF  THE  PURITANS. 

ready  to  give  praise,  where  praise  is  due.  The  Huguenots, 
Governor  Winthrop,  and  Roger  Williams,  can  testify  for 
me  on  this  point.  I  know  no  writer,  alive  or  dead,  who  has 
eulogized  Roger  Williams  for  higher  virtue,  than  my  poor 
pen  has  ascribed  to  him.  In  the  second  place,  I  have  as 
full  faith  in  the  piety,  in  the  honesty,  and  in  the  Protestant- 
ism of  Ap.  Laud,  as  any  descendant  of  the  Puritans  has,  in 
the  same  qualities,  as  endowing  and  adorning  the  Cottons, 
the  Wilsons,  and  the  Mathers,  of  his  ecclesiastical  pedigree. 
And  should  I  ever  (though  the  day  may  about  be  despaired 
of)  see  that  age  of  miracles,  which  produces  Puritan 
authors  (sermonizers,  orators,  reviewers,  and  song-writers) 
looking  away  from  Lajid's  failings,  and  honoring  his  un- 
doubted virtues,  the  example  may  so  captivate  me,  that  I  may 
forget  it  is  my  duty  to  silence  Puritan  clamors  by  enumerat- 
ing Puritan  faults,  and  attempt  a  more  grateful  task  in  its 
congenial  strain. 


NOTES 


NOTE  l,p.  15. 

There  is  a  rock,  I  am  told,  in  Rhode  Island,  famous  as  a  stepping- 
stone,  where  Roger  Williams  disembarked  from  his  canoe.  But  the 
Baptists  have  never  made  any  noise  about  it,  or  it  would  hav?  been  noto- 
rious long  ago. 

NOTE  2,  p.  15. 
The  writer  was  at  this  time  (1^35)  resident  in  Massachusetts.  It 
may  answer  the  curiosity  of  some  to  know,  who  was  the  author  of  the 
tract  to  which  reference  is  made  just  above  ;  and  I  take  this  occasion  to 
say,  that  it  was  "  An  Address  delivered  before  the  Pilgrim  Society  of  Ply- 
mouth, December  22,  1834.  By  George  W.  Blagden."  It  was  printed 
under  the  auspices  of  the  "  Trustees  of  the  Pilgrim  Society  ;"  and  thus 
became  a  sort  of  Pilgrim  manifesto.  And  of  so  much  consequence  was 
it  considered,  as  to  be  made  the  subject  of  a  copy-right. 

NOTE  3,  p.  15. 
This  is  stating  the  matter  over-fairly  for  the  Puritans.  The  band  to 
which  New  England  traces  its  religious  history,  did  not  come  from  their 
"  native  land  ;"  but,  be  it  never  forgotten,  from  Holland,  where  they  had 
lived  quietly  for  eleven  years,  and  might  have  lived  quietly  till  their  death, 
if  their  own  uneasiness  had  not  prevented.  This  is  a  link  in  the  chain 
of  Puritan  history  many  would  gladly  leave  out ;  for  it  is  fatal  to  the  argu- 
ment that  persecution  compelled  them  to  come  hither.  Were  they  perse- 
cuted out  of  Holland  ?  That  is  the  true  question  ;  and,  by  the  fear  of 
the  ninth  commandment,  let  them  answer  it  honestly.  I  have  no  appre- 
hension in  that  case  ;  for,  says  Douglass,  in  his  Summary,  &c.,  "  In 
Leyden  to  this  day  [1760],  an  English  Presbyterian  congregation  is  main- 
tained in  their  works  by  the  States.  (Vol.  i.  395,  note.)  This  shows 
how  false  their  fears,  and  how  ungenerous  their  insinuations,  that  the 
Dutch  might  swallow  them  up.  So  complaisant  are  the  Dutch,  that  138 
19* 


430  NOTES. 

years  after  the  departure  of  Robinson's  congregation,  which  was  looked 
upon  as  the  nucleus  of  New  England  Puritanism,  and  the  morning-star 
of  its  glory,  they  cherish  that  which  remained  and  was  thought  ready  to 
die.  A  formidable  necessity  truly,  which  constrained  them  to  desert  such 
obstinate  friends ! 

NOTE  4,  p.  16. 

The  very  Charter  obtained  of  Charles  I.,  in  1629,  a  few  years  after  the 
landing  at  Plymouth,  shows  on  the  face  of  it,  that  they  were  not  perse- 
cuted out  of  England,  and  that  they  left  England  as  "  adventurers"  to 
convert  the  Indians ! 

For,  in  the  first  place,  how  inexplicably  queer  it  is,  to  suppose  that 
they  whom  the  Government  drave  out  by  violence,  should  have  succeeded 
in  obtaining  from  that  very  Government  a  charter,  which  clothed  them 
(according  to  their  own  interpretation  of  it,  and  action  under  it)  with  all 
the  powers  and  honors  of  a  new  independent  state  !  Could  Huguenots 
have  obtained  a  thousandth  part  of  such  grace  from  Louis  XIV.  ? 

And  in  the  next  place,  the  Charter  itself  says  expressly,  that  they 
were  clothed  with  corporate  powers,  so  as  to  "  win  and  incite  the  natives 
of  the  country  to  the  knowledge  and  obedience  of  the  only  true  God  and 
Saviour  of  mankind,  and  the  Christian  faith  ;  which  in  our  royal  ixten- 

TION,  AND  THE  ADVENTURERS'  FREE  PROFESSION,  IS  THE  PRINCIPAL  END  OF  THIS 

PLANTATION."  (Ancient  Colony  Laws,  pp.  14,  15.)  Now,  unless  the 
Puritans  tricked  the  King,  they  were  missionary  adventurers,  and  not 
persecuted  pilgrims,  by  their  own  "free  profession."  But  Charles  is 
represented  as  greatly  reverencing  religion  ;  and  perhaps  they  did  induce 
him  to  believe  they  wanted  nothing  but  the  conversion  of  the  wretc'ied 
heathen. — The  more  worldly  King  Jamie  understood  them  better. 
When  they  asked  him  for  a  charter,  under  the  same  pretence,  he  inquired 
carefully  "What  profits  might  arise."  And  it  was  answered,  with  a 
bluntness  like  his  own,  "  Fishing."  (Young's  Chronicles,  pp.  382,  383.) 
And  that  these  "  fishing"  profits  were  not  thought  lightly  of,  is  evident 
from  the  fact,  that  in  the  year  the  Puritans  landed,  no  less  than  35  vessels 
visited  the  coast  of  New  England  for  them,"  from  the  West  of  England," 
and  in  the  next  year  40.  In  addition  to  which,  Canada  and  New  England 
shipped  off,  in  six  years  of  the  same  era,  20,000  beaver  skins  (Douglass' 
Summary,  i.  395,  396.)  Truly,  the  icy  seas  and  howling  wilds  of  North 
America  must,  even  as  early  as  1620,  have  filled  some  pockets  very  com- 
fortably.* 

*  Compare  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3cl  ser.  viii.  95.    Oldmixon,  i.  44.     Trumbull's  U.  S. 
p.  72. 


NOTES.  431 

Yet,  say  the  advocates  of  the  Puritans,  they  did  not  grow  rich,  but 
continued  poor  and  suffering.  Well,  and  whose  fault  was  that  1  That 
they  expected  to  grow  rich  is  incontestable,  from  the  confession  of  one  of 
their  own  number — Dudley.  He  thus  wrote  home  in  1631 :  "  If  any 
comes  to  this  settlement  to  plant  for  worldly  ends,  (but  if  for  spiritual  he 
may  do  well,)  that  can  live  well  at  home,  he  commits  an  error  of  which  he 
will  soon  repent  him ;  we  failed  of  our  expectation,  to  our  great 
DAMAGE."  (Douglass'  Summary,  i.  426,  note.  Compare  Mass.  Hist. 
Coll.  1st  ser.  viii.  42.)  So  here  two  formidable  facts  leak  out.  Multi- 
tudes were  coming  over  for  worldly  ends,  and  he  wrote  to  stop  them ! — 
But  the  reason,  alas !  the  reason.  Why,  we  failed  in  the  success  we 
counted  on,  and  so  beware :  you  may  be  disappointed  also,  to  the  "  great 
damage" — of  what  ]     Of  your  souls  1     Nay,  but  of  your  purses  ! 

NOTE  5,  p.  17. 
There  is  a  technical  inaccuracy  here,  which,  however,  redounds  not 
to  Puritan  credit,  but  rather  the  contrary.  The  charter  under  which  they 
first  acted  was  the  charter  of  the  Plymouth  Council  in  England  ;  and  it  is 
from  this,  and  not  from  the  charter  of  1629,  (obtained  after  they  had  left 
England,)  that  the  quotations  in  the  text  come.  Those  expressions  seem 
quite  strong  enough  ;  but  of  course  the  charter  of  1629  was  esteemed  bet- 
ter and  stronger,  or  they  would  have  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  The 
real  secret  was,  that  the  charter  of  1629  made  them,  as  they  supposed, 
independent ;  and  independence  of  all  control,  in  order  to  carry  out 
their  own  favorite  measures,  was  the  darling  object  of  their  ambition. 
They  could  not  accomplish  that,  any  better  in  Holland  than  in  England ; 
and  so  they  left  the  one  as  readily  as  they  did  the  other.  "  Disregarding 
equally  her  charter,"  says  Chalmers  in  his  Annals,  "and  the  laws  of  Eng- 
land, Massachusetts  established  for  herself  an  independent  government, 
extremely  similar  to  those  of  the  Grecian  colonies."  (Annals,  p.  682  ; 
also,  pp.  177,  178.)  Nay,  such  a  favorite  idea  was  this  independence, 
that  it  was  exemplified  largely  during  the  civil  wars  ;  showing  that  it 
was  not  freedom  of  conscience  which  was  wanted,  so  much  as  sovereignty. 
(Chalmers,  181.  Gordon's  Am.  Rev.,  i.  27,  28,  London  edit.  1778. 
Mass.  Hist.  Coll.,  3d  series,  iii.  84.) 

NOTE  6,  p.  18. 

The  celebrated  farewell  letter,  which  may  be  found  in  the  appendix  to 

the  first  volume  of  Hutchinson's  Massachusetts,  is  abundant  proof  of  this  ; 

but  it  may  be  well  enough  to  add  something  from  Robinson's  own  lips. 

Robinson  went  over  to  Holland  with  his  congregation,  "  one  of  the  most 


432  NOTES. 

rigid  separatists  from  the  Church  of  England."  (Belknap's  Biog.,  ii.  161.) 
But,  as  Belknap  shows,  he  became  more  moderate,  disavowed  the  name 
of  Brownist,  taught  his  followers  to  do  so,  and  finally  proclaimed  such 
sentiments  as  these  :  "  For  myself,  thus  I  believe  with  my  heart, and  pro- 
fess with  my  tongue,  and  have  before  the  world,  that  I  have  one  and  the 
same  faith,  hope,  spirit,  baptism,  and  Lord,  which  I  had  in  the  Church  of 
England,  and  none  other  ;  that  I  esteem  so  many  in  that  Church,  of 
what  state  or  order  soever,  as  are  truly  partakers  of  that  faith,  (as  I  ac- 
count many  thousands  to  be,)  for  my  Christian  brethren,  and  myself  a 
fellow-member  with  them  of  that  one  mystical  body  of  Christ,  scattered 
far  and  wide  throughout  the  world."  (Young's  Chronicles,  pp.  400,401.) 
So,  then,  the  model-Puritans  drew  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  Church  of 
England,  instead  of  departing  further  and  further  from  it  ;  and  if  their 
followers  in  New  England  did  not  imitate  them  in  their  later  and  cooler 
days,  those  followers  should  never  quote  them  as  their  progenitors.  Is 
there  one  in  "  many  thousands"  of  our  New  England  Puritans,  who  would 
now  say,  after  Robinson,  "  I  have  one  and  the  same  faith,  hope,  spirit, 
baptism,  and  Lord,  which  my  fathers  had  in  the  Church  of  England,  and 
NONE  OTHER  V  I  fear  not ;  in  spite  of  Mr.  Professor  Kingsley's  just  re- 
buke to  all,  "  who  do  not  feel  a  reverence  for  the  Church  of  England." 
(Historical  Discourse,  p.  55.) 

NOTE  7,  p.  19. 

"  But  this  colony  received  its  principal  assistance  from  the  discontent 
of  several  great  men  of  the  Puritan  party,  who  were  its  protectors,  and 
who  entertained  a  design  of  settling  amongst  them  in  New  England,  if 
they  should  fail  in  the  measures  they  were  pursuing  for  establishing  the 
liberty  and  refonning  the  religion  of  their  mother  country."  (European 
Settlements,  ii."  140.  Oldmixon,  i.  67.)  This  illustrates,  clearly,  the 
connexion  between  the  Puritans  in  New  England,  and  politicians  of  emi- 
nence at  home.  It  shows,  too,  that  New  England  was  not  so  much  as 
dreamed  of  for  a  residence,  by  the  chief  men  of  the  Puritan  party,  unless 
they  should  fail  in  their  revolutionary  schemes.  It  was  a  dernier  resort, 
and  nothing  more — a  city  of  refuge,  to  escape  the  avenger  of  blood,  and 
that  was  all.  Like  Caesar,  the  Puritan  politicians  were  determined  to  be 
frst  in  the  village,  rather  than  second  at  Rome  ;  and  so,  if  they  could  not 
overturn  the  English  monarchy,  they  w^ould  start  a  republic  beyond  the 
Atlantic. 

The  quotation  shows,  too,  that,  as  a  thousand  times  before,  designing 
politicians  made  religious  fanaticism  a  tool  to  work  their  own  ends. 
Little  did   many  a  simple-minded  zealot,  whose  enthusiasm  kept  him 


NOTES.  433 

warm  amid  the  snows  of  New  England — little  did  he  dream,  that  he  was 
but  the  servitor  of  the  crafty  great  at  home.  But  it  was  even  so.  They 
burned  incense  unto  his  drag,  and  then  put  their  hook  into  his  nose. 
(Collier's  Ecc.  Hist.,  vi.  436.  or,  ii.  508.)  Hetherington  (a  Presbyterian) 
says,  Cromwell  played  off  this  game  on  the  Independents,  i.  e.  Congrega- 
tionalists.     (Hist.  Westmin.  Assembly,  p.  198.) 

NOTE  8,  p.  19. 
Gordon,  a  Puritan  himself  and  a  minister,  freely  admits  and  condemns 
the  union  of  Church  and  State,  attempted  and  effected  "  so  early,"  he 
says,  "as  the  second  General  Court;"  i.  e.  in  May,  1631.  (Gordon's 
Am.  Rev.  i.  29.)  In  a  few  years,  even  the  words  "  established  religion," 
which  were  so  terrible  and  infamous  in  England,  became  virtually  as  fa- 
miliar as  household  words  in  New  England !  An  act  against  heresy  in 
1658,  speaks  undisguisedly  and  plumply  of  "  the  order  established  in 
Church  and  Commonwealth."  (Ancient  Colony  Laws,  p.  124.)  Proba- 
bly, the  fact  that  the  Puritan  religion  was  established  by  law,  in  both 
Massachusetts  and  Connecticut,  will  not  now  be  very  pugnaciously  denied. 
But  it  may  be  interesting  to  the  curious,  to  know  what  put  an  end  to  its 
establishment  in  Massachusetts,  in  1834.  The  law  gave  to  the  first 
Congregational  society  in  each  town  a  pecuniary  pre-eminence.  The 
odds  and  ends,  the  taxes  of  all  the  stragglers,  nothingarians,  and  infidels, 
went  there.  But  the  Unitarians,  some  how  or  other,  contrived  to  get  a 
good  many  of  these  first  societies  into  their  hands  ;  and  thus  "  brought 
no  small  gain  unto"  their  "  craftsmen,"  from  the  laws  supporting  religion. 
This  the  Calvinists  could  not  complacently  endure  ;  and  so  they  deter- 
mined to  defeat  the  Unitarians,  by  raising  a  hue  and  cry  with  the  Uni- 
versalists,  infidels,  &c.,  against  the  cruelty  of  making  a  man  pay  for  a 
reUgion  which  his  conscience  did  not  approve  of.  The  contest,  to  a  philo- 
sophical observer,  was  singular  enough.  Here  were  Predestinarians,  who 
would  doom  multitudes  to  a  hopeless  hereafter,  contending  for  their  pecu- 
niary emancipation  now.  While  the  Unitarians,  (who  do  not  differ 
essentially  from  Universalists  about  future  punishment — at  the  worst  be- 
lievmgonly  in  a  sort  of  Purgatory.)  were  contending  as  resolutely  for  their 
pecuniary  thraldom.  And  then  the  secret  motive  on  both  sides — nothing 
but  an  offshoot  of  the  old  love  of"  exclusive  property  in  soil !" 

NOTE  9,  p.  19. 
The  Puritans,  says  Chandler,  "  used  worse  severities  towards  others 
for  conscience'  sake,  than  what  they  themselves  had  experienced  from 


434  NOTES. 

th^  bitterest  of  their  enemies  ;*  and  thereby  made  it  appear,  that  they 
complained  against  the  persecutions  of  the  prelatical  party,  not  because 
they  were  for  moderation  and  Christian  charity  in  their  own  conduct, 
but  because  they  thought  the  right  of  persecution  only  in  themselves,  and 
that  violence  ought  not  to  be  made  use  of  to  support  any  but  the  ortho- 
dox opinions  of  such  as  they  themselves  esteemed  to  be  godly,  and  to 
maintain  what  they  called  the  order  and  fellowship  of  their  own 
churches."  (Chandler  on  Persecution,  p.  402.  London,  1736.  Compare 
Hewatt's  South  Carolina,  i.  pp.  33,  34.) 

NOTE  10,  p.  20. 
"  The  same  demon,"  says  O'Leary,  another  testifier  from  a  different 
school,  that  my  readers  may  see  how  people  from  various  points  of  ob- 
servation have  seen  the  same  melancholy  spectacle — "  The  same  demon 
that  poured  the  poisonous  cup  over  the  kingdoms  and  provinces  of  Europe, 
took  his  flight  over  the  Atlantic,  and  spread  his  baneful  influence  amongst 
colonists  who  had  themselves  fled  from  the  scourge.  Their  new-built 
cities,  like  so  many  Jerusalems,  were  purified  from  idolatry.  There,  no 
Popish  priest  dared  to  bend  his  knee  to  '  his  idols,  or  to  transfer  to  stock 
or  stone  the  worship  due  to  the  God  of  Israel.'  There,  the  Quaker 
woman's  silent  groans  were  raised  on  the  high  key  of  loud  shrieks,  when 
the  Lord's  deputy  ordered  her  profane  breasts  to  be  whipped  off  by  the 
Gospel  scourge,  that  whipped  the  profaners  out  of  the  temple.  There, 
the  Quaker  was  seen  suspended  by  the  neck  on  high,  for  daring  to  pollute 
the  sacred  streets  with  his  profane  feet,  moved  by  Baal's  spirit." 
(O'Leary's  Tracts,  3d  ed.  p.  316.) 

NOTE  11,  p.  20. 
"  How  easy  and  plain  might  we  make  our  defence,  how  clear  and  al- 
low-able  even  unto  them,  if  we  could  but  obtain  of  them  to  admit  the 
same  things  consonant  unto  equity  in  our  mouths,  which  they  require  to 
be  so  taken  from  their  own  !  If  that  which  is  truth,  being  uttered  in 
maintenance  of  Scotland  or  Geneva,  do  not  cease  to  be  truth  when  the 
Church  of  England  once  allegeth  it,  this  great  crime  of  *  Tyranny* 
wherewith  we  are  charged  hath  a  plain  and  an  easy  defence."  (Hook- 
er's Ecc.  Polity,  Hanbury's  edit.,  iii.,  166  ;  or,  B.  vii..  Sect.  14.)  Ad- 
just the  matter  on  Hooker's  claim  for  an  impartial  hearing,  and  the  voice 
of  a  Puritan  against  Laud  and  Charles  I.  would  be  silenced  forever.    For 

*  This  will  do  as  an  offset  to  Prof.  Kingsley,  who  undertakes  to  show,  (carefully 
quoting  but  one  side,)  that  England  and  Virginia  were  severer  than  the  Puritans. — 
Hilt.  Disc.  pp.  48,  49. 


NOTES.  435 

example,  a  Presbyterian  shows  how  the  Puritans  made  it  a  sufficient  ex- 
cuse, to  say  they  punished  ecclesiastical  crimes  because  they  were  civil 
ones.  (Edwards'  Antapologia,  pp.  165,  166.)  But  if  this  excuses  the 
Puritans,  then  why  not  Churchmen  too  ? 

NOTE  12,  p.  20. 
See  Hutchinson's  Massachusetts,  i.  26,  398,  note  ;  Snow's  History 
of  Boston,  p.  52.  A  multitude  more  of  references  could  be  given,  if  ne- 
cessary. The  Puritans  did  not  escape  authority  by  flying  from  bishops : 
they  only  submitted  to  twenty  bishops,  where  before  they  had  one.  Well 
did  Melancthon  say,  after  some  such  experience  as  youthful  Boston  sup- 
plied, "  I  would  to  God  it  lay  in  me  to  restore  the  government  of  bishops  ; 
for  I  see  what  manner  of  Church  we  shall  have,  the  ecclesiastical  policy 
being  dissolved.  I  foresee  that  hereafter  there  will  be  a  much  more  in- 
tolerable tyranny  than  there  ever  was  before."  (Worgan  on  the  Reforma- 
tion, pp.  202,203.*)  Hooker,  also,  complains  of  the  consequences  of  cheap- 
ening the  ministry,  and  exalting  the  brethren  in  his  day.  (Hanbury's  Hook- 
er, iii.  191,  241.)  But  a  better  authority  than  all,  with  some,  will  be  the 
testimony  given  by  Bissland  on  the  Preaching  of  the  Cross,  pp.  97,  98, 
note.  "  It  is  frequently  admitted,"  he  says,  "  by  dissenting  teachers,  that 
the  interference  of  the  leading  members  of  their  congregation  is  some- 
times intolerable,  and  that  they  are  in  as  much  bondage  to  some  wealthy, 
though  perhaps  ignorant  layman,  as  if  he  claimed  the  infallibility  of  the 
Pope.  No  one  can  speak  more  strongly  on  this  subject,  than  Mr.  J.  A. 
James  of  Birmingham  ;  and  probably  no  man  is  better  qualified  to  speak 
upon  it.  '  What  is  the  deacon  of  some  of  our  dissenting  communities  1 
The  patron  of  the  living,  the  Bible  of  the  minister,  and  the  wolf  of  the 

flock In  many  of  our  churches,  the  pastor  is  depressed  far  below 

his  level His  opinion  is  received  with  no  deference,  his  person  is 

treated  with  no  respect  ;  and  in  the  presence  of  some  of  his  lay  tyrants 

he  is  only  permitted  to  peep  and  mutter  in  the  dust.' "  "  There 

never  was  a  difficulty,"  said  a  suffering  Puritan  minister,  "but  there 
was  a  deacon  in  it."  And  even  Mr.  Mitchell  is  obliged  to  acknowledge 
this  half  true.     (Church  Member,  p.  134.) 

NOTE  13,  p.  21. 
Dr.  Hawks,  the  author  alluded  to,  puts  rather  a  different  face  upon  the 
mission  to  Virginia,  by  saying  it  was  requested  by  residents  in  Virginia 

*  So  Lord  Digby  warned  them.  "  I  am  confident  that  instead  of  every  Bishop 
we  put  down  in  a  Diocese,  we  shall  set  up  a  Pope  in  every  parish."  (Rushworth's 
Collections,  iv.  174.)    This  was  in  1640. 


436  NOTES. 

itself.  (Hawks'  Virginia,  p.  51.*)  Most  cheerfully,  therefore,  would  I 
abandon  the  paragraph,  as  one  blot  effaced  from  the  Puritan  escutcheon. 
But  it  unfortunately  happens,  that  the  application  was  made  the  year  poor 
Ap.  Laud  was  committed  to  the  Tower,  and  was  answered  the  next 
year,  when  it  was  clearly  seen,  no  doubt,  that  he  would  never  go  out  of 
prison  but  to  his  grave.  That  was  indeed  a  most  auspicious  moment  to 
make  an  inroad  on  a  loyal  colony,  which,  in  their  view  and  language,  was 
"  the  region  and  shadow  of  death."  (Mather's  Magnalia,  i.  538.)  And, 
too,  I  can  never  forget  their  excessive  testiness  about  Episcopal  missions, 
so  late  as  the  days  of  Mayhew  and  Apthorp,  more  than  a  century  after- 
wards. Such  a  people  had  scanty  reason  for  complaining,  that  they  were 
treated  themselves,  as  they  would  treat  others.  Had  their  ministers,  in- 
stead of  having  "  little  encouragement  from  the  rulers,"  been  treated  as 
they  themselves  began  to  treat  the  Quakers,  when  they  found  it  necessary 
to  moderate  their  severity,  they  would  have  been  whipped  through  but 
three  towns,  instead  of  from  end  to  end  of  the  Commonwealth.  It  is  an 
actual  fact,  that  a  Puritan  statute  against  the  Quakers  decreed,  as  a  con- 
descension, that  they  should  be  whipped  "  but  through  three  towns"!  This 
was  in  1661,  when  Charles  H.  had  forbidden  hanging  and  boring  with 
a  red  hot  iron.  This  was  the  way  in  which  Puritan  mercies  became 
tender.  (See  Ancient  Col.  Laws,  p.  126.  Hutchinson's  Hist.  i.  188. 
Wynne's  America,  i.  80.     Oldmixons  British  Empire  in  America,  i.  108.) 

NOTE  14,  p.  22. 
When  this  was  written,  I  had  not  seen  Prof.  Knowles'  Life  of  Roger 
Williams.  He  disputes  the  claim  of  the  Romanists,  and  I  must  think 
successfully.  (Life,  p.  371,  &c.)  Maryland  tolerated  Christians  and 
Trinitarians  only  ;f  and  even  passed  a  law  in  1649,  mulcting  all  who 
should  speak  reproachfully  against  the  Blessed  Virgin,  or  the  Apostles.! 
(Gordon's  America,  i.  68,  edit.  17S8.)  Mr.  Knowles  correctly  says,  such 
a  provision  might  be  made  a  terrible  engine  of  persecution  ;  for  a  Protest- 
ant might  say,  e.  g.  that  the  Virgin  Mary  should  not  be  worshipped,  and 
that  would  be  a  dismal  reproach  to  her,  in  the  eye  of  a  Papist.  But 
Roger  Williams,  he  says,  granted  toleration  to  every  body.§     The  palm 

*  On  the  52d  page,  however,  he  half  takes  this  back,  by  showing  that  the  mission 
was  probably  suggested  by  Puritan  emigrants. 

t  N.  B.  When  Puritans  had  sway  in  Maryland,  in  Cromwell's  day,  a  persecnting 
law  was  passed  against  Romanists  and  Episcopalians  also !  The  contrast  is  most 
expressive.    (Bozman's  Marylaml,  170.  171.) 

X  The  Law  of  1649,  threatened  Anti-Trinitarians  with  death.     BancroA,  i.  C5P. 

$  In  Upham's  life  of  Vane,  in  Sparks'  Am.  Biog  ,  the  priority  appears  to  be  claim- 
ed for  Sir  Harry  Vane,  as  an  assenor  of  liberty  of  conscience.    See  pp.  155,  KG,  204. 


NOTES.  437 

in  peerless  charity  might  therefore  be  assigned  to  him  ;  but  unfortunately 
this  apostle  of  universal  good-will  is  found  selling  Indians  into  slavery ! 
Mr.  Knowles  mourns  over  him,  (Life,  p.  348,)  and  w^ell  he  may  ;  and, 
on  the  whole,  both  the  plea  for  him  and  the  Romanists,  must  be  taken 
with  some  abatement.  Detract  from  it,  however,  never  so  much  ;  and  yet 
how  transcendently  superior  are  Baptists  and  Papists  to  Puritans,  for  they 
sometimes  would  not  hear  one  another  !  One  Mr.  Hobart,  who  had  a 
little  of  that  energy  and  dauntlessness  which  afterwards  shone  so  con- 
spicuously in  a  bishop,  who,  as  Tudor  says  in  his  Life  of  Otis,  p.  497,  was 
his  descendant,  was  positively  and  peremptorily  forbidden  by  the  magis- 
trates to  preach  in  Boston,  because,  alas !  "  he  was  a  hold  man,  and  would 
speak  his  mind.''  This  was  bad  enough  ;  but  Mr.  Hobart  capped  the 
climax  when  he  "  managed  all  affairs  without  advice  of  the  brethren"  ! ! 
That  fixed  his  fate,  and  the  Boston  Inquisition  put  their  seal  upon  his  lips, 
as  if  like  Darius  they  were  fastening  the  den  of  lions.  (See  Young's 
Chronicles,  p.  402,  notes.  Sav.  Wint.  ii.  313.)  Cotton  Mather  says  he 
was  a  determined  foe  to  those,  who  were  "  furiously  set  upon  having  all 
things  carried  their  way,  which  they  would  call  th*  rule."  (Magnalia, 
i.  450.)  Of  course  such  a  man  was  an  uncomfortable  neighbor  to  Puritan 
autocrats,  such  as  Mather  alludes  to. 

NOTE  15,  p.  26. 

To  Puritanism  also,  says  Dean  Swift,  England,  by  a  sort  of  vice  versa 
rule,  has  been  indebted  for  Popery.  Puritanism  drove  the  children  of 
Charles  I.  into  exile,  "  where  one  of  them  at  least,  I  mean  King  James 
II.,  was  seduced  to  Popery ;  which  ended  in  the  loss  of  his  kingdoms,  the 
misery  and  desolation  of  this  country,  and  a  long  and  expensive  war 
abroad."  (Swift's  Works,  xiv.  73,  12mo  edit.  London,  1803.)  This 
will  be  a  new  way,  to  some,  of  acc(?unting  for  the  semi-popery  (as  the  Pu- 
ritans believed)  of  Charles  I.,  and  the  thorough  Popery  of  James  II.  But 
the  Dean  had  a  very  common  sense  way  of  looking  at  facts,  as  well 
as  of  expressing  his  opinions.  His  obser%'ation  is  worthy  no  small  defer- 
ence. , 

And  certainly,  if  Roger  Williams  had  aught  to  do  with  the  exception  of  Roman  Catho- 
lics, in  the  Rhode  Island  statute  of  March  1663,  he  could  hardly  be  deemed  a  consistent 
assertor  of  the  doctrine.  See  foot-note  upon-  this  subject,  in  Letter  XVI,  on  the 
Papists  ;  and  the  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  ser.  v.  243,  244,  which  prove  incontestably  the 
existence  of  the  statute  alluded  to. — See  Mr.  Hallam's  opinion  on  this  subject.  Introd. 
to  Literature,  iii.  61,  Paris  edit.  1839.  Mr.  Hallam  seems  not  to  have  been  aware  of 
the  existence  of  Roger  Williams,  and  gives  the  palm,  on  the  whole,  to  the  Arminians. 
This  is  worth  noting,  when  we  remember  that  Ap.  Laud  was  considered  a  strong 
Arminian '. 


438  NOTES. 

NOTE  16,  p.  28. 

Briscoe's  letter  from  England,  in  October,  1652,  fully  confirms  Laud's 
prediction.  He  thus  writes  to  his  son-in-law,  at  Boston,  Massachusetts  : 
"  They  make  themselves  rich,  and  that  is  all  they  do.  King's  lands,  and 
bishops',  deans'  and  delinquents'  lands,  sold  ;  and  debts  not  paid,  but  very 
few  ;  nor  heavy  burdens  taken  oflT.  I  could  write  a  great  deal  more  to 
you  of  the  carriage  of  things,  hut  dare  not.  Those  that  went  to  Holland 
in  the  bishops'  days,  as  Thomas  Goodwin,  Nye,  and  Simson,  &c.,  will 
prove  as  great  persecutors  a^the  bishops."  (Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  ser.  i. 
33.)  One  would  think  Briscoe's  actual  description  bad  enough  ;  but  we 
see  his  possible  description  might  have  been  tremendous.  Doubtless, 
however,  he  remembered  the  awful  fate  of  Christopher  Love  in  1651,  (I 
shall  allude  to  Love  in  the  seventeenth  Letter,)  and  so  was  cautious. — 
It  might  have  cost  him  his  liberty,  if  not  his  life,  to  be  too  plain. 

His  caution  was  provident.  The  letter  was  ferreted  out  in  Boston, 
and,  by  order  of  the  Legislature,  sent  back  to  England.  This  confirms 
the  statement  of  Chalmers,  about  the  intermeddling  of  Massachusetts  with 
private  correspondence.  (Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  3d  ser.  i.  35.  Chalmers' 
Annals,  pp.  146,  148,149.) 

NOTE  17,  p.  30. 
This  is  exquisite  indeed :  a  text  from  the  Apocrypha,  to  fortify  Puri- 
tans in  denouncing  the  Church' of  England  as  Antichrist!  Why,  one 
of  their  sternest  objections  to  the  Liturgy  was,  that  it  allowed  apocryphal 
lessons  to  be  read  in  divine  service  ;  though  some  of  those  lessons  were 
purposely  read  on  such  days  as  Papists  would  over-magnify,  (days  com- 
memorative e.  g.  of  the  Virgin  Mary,)  in  order  that  the  Church  might 
manifest  no  undue  deference  towards  them,  and  give  the  world  to  under- 
stand she  regarded  them  as  daysof  human  and  not  of  divine  appointment. 
(Shepherd's  Elucidation,  i.  178.  Rowe  on  the  Rubric,  p.  40.)  Never- 
theless, when  it  was  desirable  to  prove  such  a  damnatory  doctrine  as 
Milton's,  (viz.  "  Nor  is  there  any  thing  that  hath  more  marks  of  schism 
and  sectarism,  than  English  Episcopacy :"  Milton's  Prose  Works,  p. 
310.  Lond.  1838,)  and  so  justify  entire  separation  from  the  Church  of 
England — oh,  then,  the  Apocrypha  is  capital  and  resistless  authority ! — 
Touch  no  such  unclean  thing  as  the  Church  of  England,  says  the  Apo- 
crypha ;  and  every  Puritan  shall  say  Amen. 

NOTE  18,  p.  31. 
This  expression  of  the  oath  is  worthy  the  closest   observation.     It 
establishes,  conclusively,  what  has  been  said  again  and  again,  and  as  often 


\  NOTES.  439 

denied.  "  Moreover  1  have  now  joined  myself  to  the  Church  of  Christ." 
Of  course  the  swearer  thereby  virtually  admits  and  asserts  that  he  was 
never  in  the  Church  of  Christ  before :  a  position  which  is  abundantly 
strengthened  by  what  is  avowed  below,  that  to  go  back  and  join  the 
Church  of  England  would  be  to  join  Antichrist.  It  has  often  and  often 
been  said,  and  denied,  that  the  Puritans  maintained  the  Church  of  England 
to  be  no  Church  at  all,  and  as,  therefore,  a  lawful  subject  for  utter  demolition. 
Let  their  oath  of  conspiracy  now  settle  the  question.  Let  not  such  con- 
cessions as  Robinson's,*  on  the  eve  of  the  expedition  in  the  Mayflower, 
or  the  farewell  letter  signed  by  Winthrop,  &c.,  "aboord  the  Arbella," 
be  interpreted  as  signifying  quite  other  views.  The  expression  of  such 
views  then,  shows  rather  that  once  they  thought  otherwise,  and  now 
relented.     But  the  relentings  of  a  few  are  not  the  retrogression  of  all. 

NOTE  19,  p.  32, 
"  It  must  be  further  observed,  that  all  these  attempts  have  been  mad& 
under  the  old  outcries  and  noise  of  Popery ;  which,  when  loudest  and 
most  clamorous,  is  as  sure  a  sign  of  some  violent  assault  from  Presbytery, 
as  a  ruffian's  endeavoring  to  divert  your  eyes  from  himself,  betokens  his 
intention  of  stabbing  you  in  the  back." — Walker's  Sufl^erings  of  the  Clergy, 
Pref  p.  X. 

NOTE  20,  p.  32. 

"  All  popular  factions,"  says  L' Estrange,  who  lived  in  the  midst  of  the 
turbulent  days  of  the  Puritans,  "  take  the  Church  in  their  way  to  the 
State."  (Holy  Cheat,  p.  170.)  But  Bishop  Pilkington  describes  the 
whole  process  most  graphically.  "  The  disputes  which  began  about  the 
vestments  were  now  carried  further,  even  to  the  whole  constitution. — 
Pious  persons  lamented  this,  atheists  laughed,  and  the  Papists  blew  the 
coals  ;  and  the  blame  of  all  was  cast  upon  the  bishops."  (Lathbury,  49. 
Maddox,  181.)  Yet,  as  Neal  and  Fuller  testify.  Bishop  Pilkington  "  was 
always  a  very  great  friend  and  favorer  of  the  non-conformists,"  and  "  a 
conniver"  at  their  delinquencies — in  other  words,  half  a  Puritan  himself. 
(Neal,  i.  357.  Fuller,  ii.  513.)  Pilkington's  testimony,  therefore,  is 
peculiarly  valuable. 

*  And  after  all,  what  does  Robinson's  concession  (so  often  quoted)  amount  to? 
Simply  to  this,  that  the  Ministers  of  the  Church  of  England  might  be  listened  to,  when 
they  preached.  He  renounced  the  communion,  sacraments  and  ordination  of  the 
Church  of  England,  as  stiffly  as  ever.     A  huge  concession  indeed  I 


440  NOTES. 

NOTE  21,  p.  33. 

Mr.  Bacon,  who  believes  in  the  virtue  of  hard  names,. calls  King 
James  "  a  low-minded,  vainglorious,  pedantic  fool."  (Hist.  Discourses, 
p.  9.)*  But  he  showed  no  folly  in  his  argument  about  the  motto,  "  No 
bishop,  no  king."  His  speech,  referred  to  in  Fuller,  shows  how  he 
understood  it.  Here  is  a  Churchman's  familiar  explanation  oT  it,  at  another 
day.  "  By  no  bishop,  no  king,  is  not  intended  that  bishops  are  the  props 
of  royalty,  nor  do  Episcopalians  understand  it  so :  but  that  both  one  and 
the  other  are  objects  of  the  same  fury ;  only  the  Church  goes  first." — 
(L'Estrange's  Holy  Cheat,  p.  170.) 

James  might  well  feel  suspicious  of  the  ulterior  aims  of  the  Puritans, 
and  their  recklessness  of  means  to  accomplish  them.  They  professed  to 
hate  Elizabeth  ;  yet,  (as  I  shall  have  to  say  a  second  time.)  they  provoked 
her  to  the  darkest  deed  of  all  her  reign.  "  No  persons  were  more  strenu- 
ous than  the  Puritans,  in  their  endeavors  to  bring  the  Queen  of  Scots  to 
the  scaffold."     (Shorts'  Ch.  Hist.  i.  443.) 

NOTE  22,  p.  35. 
Ross,  another  Presbyterian,  enumerates  one  hundred  and  six  heresies,t 
which  grew  up  on  the  soil  of  Independency  after  good  wholesome  Presby- 
terianism  was  pushed  away  ;  and  adds,  "  these  are  some  of  the  poysonous 
weeds,  which  have  (too  much  of  late)  infested  our  English  garden ;  I 
mean  the  Church  once  admired  (both  at  home  and  abroad)  for  the  beauty 
of  her  doctrine  and  discipline,  and  envied  by  none  but  Ignorantsand  men 
of  perverse  minds."  (Ross's  Views  of  all  Religions,  5th  ed.  1675,  pp. 
426,427.)  t  The  Edinburgh  Review  says  the  tricks  of  the  Independents 
were  remembered  and  paid  off,  when  the  question  of  Charles  II.'s  Resto- 
ration came  up.  "  The  Presbyterians,  in  their  eagerness  to  be  revenged 
on  the  Independents,  sacrificed  their  own  liberty,  and  deserted  all  their 
old  principles.  Without  casting  one  glance  on  the  past,  or  requiring  one 
stipulation  for  the  future,  they  threw  down  their  freedom  at  the  feet  of  the 
most  frivolous  and  heartless  of  tyrants."  (Select.  Ed.  Rev.  ii.  57.  Paris, 
1835.)     Such  were  the  fraternal  interchanges   between  old-school  and 

*  D'Israeli,  a  somewhat  more  competent  judge,  forms  a  very  different  opinion  of 
King  James'  character,  and  says  he  has  been  wronged. — Cariosities  of  Literature,  ii. 
240,  24-2.     Boston  edit.  1833. 

•f  Edwards  in  his  Gangraena,  Pt.  i.  15,  and  Pt.  iii.  pp.  1, 116,  says  two  hundred  and 
ten!  Morse  says  more  than  eighty  wete  soon  engendered  by  it  on  the  soil  of  New 
England  '.—Geography,  p.  185. 

X  Compare  Bastwick's  dismal  confirmation  of  this,  in  his  "Second  part  of  Inde- 
pendency." Q,uoted  in  Baillie's  Dissuasive,  p.  95.  Prelacy  cut  Ba.stwick's  ears  off  j 
yet  Puritanism  in  its  genuine  form,  was,  notwithstanding,  a  dose  he  could  not  swallow. 


NOTES.  441 

new-school,  in  days  long  forgotten.     Can  modern  Philadelphia  furnish  us 
with  any  similar  "  beauties  of  history]" 

NOTE  23,  p.  35. 
Wilson,  one  of  their  own  historians,  admits,  says  the  Quarterly  Re- 
view (vol.  X.  91),  "How  the  earliest  dissenters  held  'that  the  con- 
stitution of  the  hierarchy  was  too  bad  to  be  mended  ;  that  the  very 
pillars  of  it  were  rotten  ;  that  the  structure  ought  to  be  raised  anew  ;  and 
that  they  were  resolved  to  lay  a  new  foundation,  though  it  were  at  the 
hazard  of  all  that  was  dear  to  ihem  in  the  world.'  '  Their  chief  error/ 
he  says, '  seems  to  have  been  their  uncharitableness  in  unchurching  the 
whole  Christian  world  except  themselves.' "  O  remember  this,  ye  who 
talk  about  unchurching,  bigoted,  Episcopalians  ! 

NOTE  24,  p.  36. 
"  They"  (i.  e.  the  political  Puritans)  says  the  Edinburgh  Review, 
"  seem  to  have  borne  some  resemblance  to  the  Brissotines  of  the  French 
Revolution.  But  it  is  not  very  easy  to  draw  the  line  of  distinction  be- 
tween them  and  their  devout  associates  ;  whose  tone  and  manner  they 
sometimes  found  it  convenient  to  affect,  and  sometimes,  it  is  probable, 
imperceptibly  adopted."  (Select.  Edin.  Rev.  ii.  60.)  This  much  too, 
be  it  remembered,  when  this  Review  sympathized  with  them  poUtically. 
Now  for  an  authority  from  the  Quarterly,  in  respect  to  the  influence 
of  the  clergy,  and  the  ease  with  which  they  learned  their  lessons  ;  and  as 
it  states  a  fact,  its  testimony  may  be  taken  in  full  latitude.  "  Cromwell 
would  have  remitted  the  barbarous  punishment  to  which  he  [James 
Naylor,  a  fanatic]  was  condemned  ;  but  the  public  preachers,  Caryl, 
Manton,  Nye,  Griffith,  and  Reynolds,  were  as  inexorable  as  so  many 
Dominican  friars  ;  and  like  all  punishments  in  those  days,  it  was  inflicted 
th  the  utmost  rigor  of  inhumanity."     (Quart.  Rev.  x.  107.) 


i 


NOTE  25,  p.  38. 
Mr.  Lathbury  is  a  very  clear-headed  and  dispassionate  writer,  who 
refutes  Neal,  &,c.,  in  the  quietest  way  imaginable.  I  wish  his  octavo  of 
only  363  leaded  pages  could  be  reprinted.  If  done  by  any  one,  let  him 
by  no  means  forget  a  good  index,  which  the  English  copy  wants.  An 
extensive  index  would  double  the  book's  value. 

NOTE  26,  p.  38. 
Neal's  own  words  are,  as  quoted,  "  a  rigid  Brownist."      Belknap 
"  mollified"  the  "  relation"  a  little,  and  said,  "  rigid  in  his  separation  from 


442  NOTES. 

the  Episcopal  Church."  Neal's  knuckles  were  dealt  so  faithfully  with 
by  Dr.  Watts,  that  when  he  wrote  afterwards  the  history  of  the  Puritans 
in  England,  they  guided  his  pen  more  astutely.  The  history  of  New 
England  appeared  in  1720  ;  the  first  volume  of  the  history  of  the  Puri- 
tans appeared  in  1732.  The  mollification  there  is  all  on  the  right  side, 
and  Neal's  character,  accordingly,  is  fully  recovered  by  Puritanic  ad- 
measurement. He  is  not  quite  "  unimpeachable,"  however,  with  Pres- 
byterians, except  when  he  abuses  Churchmen,  When  he  touches  the  scar 
of  an  old  Presbyterian  wound,  there  is  some  wincing,  as  we  see  even  at  this 
day.  "  Indeed,"  says  Hetherington,  "  the  whole  of  Neal's  statement  re- 
specting the  conduct  of  the  Presbyterians  is  so  warped  and  biassed  by 
prejudice,  that  it  presents  a  very  unfair  view,  not  only  of  their  characters, 
but  even  of  the  facts  that  occurred,  in  which  they  bore  a  leading  part." 
(Hist.  West.  Assembly,  p.  231.)  On  p.  245,  he  says  that  the  authority 
of  Neal  is"  by  no  means  unimpeachable."* 

NOTE  27,  p.  38. 

The  change  in  Robinson  himself  was  not  much  of  a  regeneration, 
according  to  Neal.  "  His  adversaries,"  he  says,  "  called  him  a  Semi- 
Separatist;  because  he  allowed  of  communion  with  other  reformed 
churches  in  the  word  and  prayer,  but  not  in  the  Sacraments  and  disci- 
pline." (Neal's  N.  Eng.  i.  110,  111.)  As  to  Robinson's  congregation, 
the  unraoUifying  historian  doggedly  adds,  (vol.  i.  116.)  "  Tis  certain, 
however,  they  were  too  much  attached  to  some  of  the  Brownistical 
Principles,  which  Mr.  Rohinson,  if  he  had  livod,  would  have  weaned 
them  from,  and  particularly  to  the  Preachings  of  the  Gifted  Brethren." 
The  italics  are  Neal's  own  ;  and  if  there  be  a  faint  sneer  in  them  at  the 
"  Gifted  Brethren,"  I  hope  it  will  be  duly  pardoned. 

Robinson  stands  higher  with  the  descendants  of  the  "  Pilgrims,"  than 
almost  any  one  ;  but  I  cannot  see  why  even  they  should  canonize  hi 
Here,  in  1620,  we  find  him  repudiating  the  name  of  Brownist,  and 
in  1619,  (but  the  year  before,  such  is  the  date  in  Watt's  Bibliotheca,  and 
Mr.  Young  admits  it,  page  40  of  his  Chronicles,)  he  publishes  his  solemn 
apology  for  Brownism!  This  was  published  in  English,  says  Mr.  Young, 
in  1644;  but  Watt  says  in  1625;  and,  if  so,  very  possibly  during 
Robinson's  life,  and  by  himself!  t     These  things  look  curious,  and  tally 

*  For  a  very  strong  Protestant's  opinion  respecting  Neal,  take  the  following  : 
"  No  one  who  looks  for  truth  will  trust  the  historian  of  the  Puritans  alone,  from  one 
sentence  to  another." — Mendham's  Pius  V.  p.  J59,  notes. 

t  Since  writing  this,  I  have  seen  Punchard's  History  of  Congregationalism,  p.  344  ; 
from  which  it  appears  that  Robinson's  Apology  for  Brownism  was  translated  by  him- 
self, and  published  in  1625.    So  my  conjecture  was  true  ! 


NOTES,  443 

poorly  with  the  lofty  compliment,  that  Robinson  "  was  never  satisfied  in 
himself,  until  he  had  searched  any  cause  or  argument  he  had  to  deal  in, 
thoroughly,  and  to  the  bottom."  (Young's  Chron.  452.)  Was  he  such, 
and  did  he  do  so,  in  very  deed  ?  Then  the  Church  of  England  should 
have  suffered  less  from  him  ;  for  he  was  once  a  beneficed  clergyman 
within  her  pale,  and  might  have  paused,  longer  than  he  did,  ere  he  re- 
nounced her  as  very  Antichrist :  which  was  one  of  the  distinct  positions 
of  the  Brownists.  (See  the  letter  prefacing  Bp.  Hall's  Apology  against 
the  Brownists,  which  was  an  answer  to  one  of  Robinson's  pamphlets, 
where  he  alludes  to  the  abusive  violence  of  Robinson  ;  and  see  also  his 
Epistle  to  him  and  Smith,  Decade  third,  letter  first.)  But  behold,  after 
Robinson's  decease,  a  treatise  is  found  in  his  study  on  the  lawfulness  of 
hearing  the  ministers  of  the  Church  of  England  !     (Young,  400). 

So  then,  this  profound  and  thorough  gentleman  begins  by  swearing 
allegiance  to  the  Church  of  England  ;  he  next  casts  upon  her  "  the  blas- 
phemous imputations  of  apostasy,  antichristianism,  whoredom,  and  rebel- 
lion ;"  (see  Bp.  Hall's  prefatory  letter  ;*)  he  then  defends  Brownism  ;  he 
then  disowns  it ;  he  then  defends  it  for  a  second  time  ;  and  finally  closes 
the  scene,  by  saying,  "  I  have  one  and  the  same  faith,  hope,  spirit,  bap- 
tism, and  Lord,  which  I  had  in  the  Church  of  England,  and  none  OTHER."t 

I  am  willing  to  take  his  dying  testimony,  and  believe  that,  on  the 
whole,  this  was  the  reason,  and  not  want  of  money,  as  Mr.  Young  sug- 
gests, (p.  453,)  which  kept  him  from  following  the  "  pilgrims"  to  New 
England.     There  has  always  hung  a  mystery  around  Robinson's  shrink- 

*  Robinson  deserved  small  allowance  for  his  own  motives,  for  he  was  in  the  habit 
of  blackening  the  motives  of  clergymen.  He  used  to  tell  his  people,  that  many  of 
those  who  preached  against  them,  and  wrote  against  them,  if  they  were  where  they 
dare  be  honest,  would  be  just  like  themselves. — Hazard's  Collect,  i.  357. 

t  An  unfortunate  Churchman,  to  try  to  soothe  a  Puritan  in  New  England,  told  him 
they  had  the  same  religion.  Gospel,  and  hope.  And  what  was  the  reply  ?  See  how 
sharp  and  trenchant.  "  What,"  he  says,  to  his  own  friends,  "  renounce  your  commu- 
nion, church-government,  and  some  of  your  essential  doctrines,  too,  and  yet  hold  the 
same  religion  with  you  !— Again,  Is  it  the  same  religion,  Gospel,  and  hope  .'" — See  a 
Teply  to  a  letter  of  a  Church  of  England  minister  to  his  dissenting  parishioners.  Bos- 
ton, 1736,  p.  17. 

Now  Robinson  could  talk  in  the  same  way,  this  poor  Churchman  did,  and  it  was 
all  right— all  an  exhibition  of  famous  charity.  The  moment  a  Churchman  begins  to 
talk  80,  a  Puritan  cleaves  him  to  the  very  chine. 

I  cannot  say,  however,  he  did  not  serve  him  quito  right.  And  I  commend  the 
case,  and  its  issue,  to  those  of  my  brethren  who  think  it  best  to  tell  anti-Episcopalians 
how  slightl/  they  differ  from  them,  how  much  they  love  them,  &;c.  They  get  not  a 
particle  of  credit  for  this  extra  charity.  They  only  get  a  back-blow.  '  Why,  then, 
are  you  not  like  iis,  not  almost,  but  altogether  ?'— May  they  learn  a  little  wisdom  by 
caustic  experience. 


444  NOTES. 

ing  delay,  for  five  long  years  in  Holland.*  He  was  not  an  old  man  :  he 
died  at  the  age  of  fifty  only,  and  was  in  the  prime,  doubtless,  of  his  vigor. 
And  he  alone  v^mt  money,  when  a  whole  shipload  of  inferior  persons 
found  it  ?  And  this,  too,  when  as  Neal  says,  his  presence  was  indispen- 
sable to  wean  them  from  Brownism,  and  silence  the  too  free  effusions  of 
the  Gifted  Brethren  ?  Credat  Judceus,  &,c.  No  :  his  confidence  in  Pu- 
ritanism began  to  shake,  and  his  attachment  to  the  Church  of  England  to 
revive.  A  few  years  more  would  have  sufficed  to  make  him  follow 
Brown's  steps,  and  go  home  to  his  spiritual  mother.  I  cannot  but  be- 
lieve, too,  that  the  words  of  Bp.  Hall  t  rang  in  his  ears,  in  the  loneUness 
of  that  study  where  he  again  inclined  to  think  her  preaching  lawful ;  and 
that,  "  ungenerous"  as  Mr.  Young  pleases  to  pronounce  them,  (Chron.  p. 
453,)  they  touched  a  heart  which  had  learned  to  repent  of  its  hostility, 
to  remember  its  first  love,  and  to  consider  by  whose  bread  its  youth  had 
been  nourished.  As  the  words  may  not  be  accessible  to  many,  I  will 
quote  them,  and  close  this  protracted  note.  "  Must  God  be  accused  of 
your  wilfulness  ?  Before  that  God,  and  his  blessed  angels  and  saints,  we 
fear  not  to  protest,  that  we  are  undoubtedly  persuaded,  that  whosoever 
wilfully  forsake  the  communion,  government,  ministry,  or  worship  of  the 
Church  of  England,  are  enemies  to  the  sceptre  of  Christ,  and  rebels  against 
his  Church  and  Anointed :  neither  doubt  we  to  say,  that  the  Mastership 
of  the  Hospital  at  Norwich,  or  a  lease  from  that  city  (sued  for  with  re- 
^pulse)  might  have  procured,  that  this  separation  from  the  communion, 
government,  and  worship  of  the  Church  of  England  should  not  have  been 
made  by  John  Robinson." — Hall's  Works,  x.  113.  Oxford  ed.  1837. 

NOTE28,  p.  41. 

Perhaps  I  ought  to  qualify  this,  which  is  stronger  language  than  Neal 
himself  dare  use.  He  says  "  the  little  army  of  confessors,"  (vol.  iv.  pref 
p.  iv.,)  and  so  the  little  army  of  confessors  let  it  be. 

*  There  can  be  no  great  harm,  for  yet  another  reason,  in  suspecting  Robinson's 
motives  ;  for  he  suspected  his  own  brethren  at  Plymouth.  He  said  they  did  not 
want  him  there;  because  he  would  stop  lay-preaching!  So  even  they  suspected 
he  was  g(  tting  to  be  too  high  a  churchmam  !  All  tliis  is  clear  from  his  own  letter. 
— Hazard's  Coll.  i.  372. — Mr.  Young  in  his  Chronicles,  p.  476,  inclines  to  the  suppo- 
sition, that  the  Rev.  Mr.  Ly  ord,  &c.  were  opposed  to  Robinson's  coming.  But  if  the 
"Gifted  Brethren"  had  not  advanced  high  pretensions,  why  does  Robinson's  letter 
forbid  a  layman's  administering  sacraments.'' 

t  It  is  remarkable  that  Bishop  Hall  quoted  to  him  his  own  colleague's  words, 
when  Robinson  shrank  from  the  lengths  to  which  he  went.  "  He  tells  you  true : 
your  station  is  unsafe  :  either  you  must  forward  to  him,  or  back  to  us." — Hall,  x.  9. 
— No  doubt  these  words  lodged  in  Robinson's  memory,  very  deeply. 


NOTES.  445 

NOTE  29,  p.  41. 

That  Episcopacy  was  detested  by  the  Puritans  more  than  Popery,  is 
clear  from  the  Gangraena  of  Edwards.  Here  are  two  of  the  positions 
which  he  ascribes  to  the  Independents,  i.  e.  the  Congregaiionalists,  or  tip- 
top Puritans,  who  professed  what  he  called  "  Brownism  refined." 

"  That  the  Church  of  England  and  the  ministry  thereof  is  Antichris- 
tian,yea  of  the  Devil,  and  that  it  is  absolutely  sinful  and  unlawful  to  hear 
any  of  their  ministers  preach  in  their  assemblies." 

"  That  the  Church  of  Rome  was  once  a  true  Church,  but  so  was  the 
Church  of  England  never ;  therefore  it  is  likelier  the  Church  of  Rome 
should  be  in  the  right,  in  the  doctrines  of  free-will,  universal  redemption, 
original  sin,  &.c.,  than  the  Church  of  England."  (Gangraena,  Pt.  i.  p.  25, 
Compare  p.  12.) 

NOTE  30,  p.  41. 
The  character  of  Neal  is  thus  given  by  Mosheim,  who,  being  neither 
Churchman  nor  Puritan,  may  be  accounted  an  impartial  critic.  "  While 
he  relates  in  the  most  circumstantial  manner  all  the  injuries  the  Puritans 
received  from  the  bishops,  and  those  of  the  established  religion,  he  in  many 
places  diminishes,  excuses,  or  suppresses,  the  faults  and  failings  of  these 
separatists."  (Maclaine's  Mosheim,  iv.  379.)  It  is  remarkable  that  Dr. 
Murdock,  himself  an  Independent,  should  give  this  sentence  even  more 
edge  in  his  translation.  "  While  he  is  full  in  narrating  and  emblazoning 
the  wrongs  which  the  bishops  inflicted,  or  caused  to  be  inflicted  on  the 
Puritans,  he  frequently  extenuates,  excuses,  or  passes  silently  over,  the 
faults  of  the  Puritan  sect."     (Murdock's  Mosh.  iii.  201.) 

NOTE  31,  p.  42. 
"  Neal  states  that,  in  1573,  three  hundred  were  deprived  in  the  dio- 
cese of  Norwich  alone  ;  whereas  Strype  mentions  only  three."     (Lath- 
bury,  50.     Maddox  Vind.  340.     Compare  Neal,i.  320.) 

NOTE  32,  p.  49. 

The  government  were  gentle  enough  to  those  who  took  the  advice, 
that  the  Puritan  historian  Hubbard  thought  proper  to  give  all  who  dis- 
sented from  his  New  England  establishment. 

"  However,  it  were  well  if  all  those  who  cannot  comply  with  the  reli- 
gion of  the  State  and  place  where  they  live,  yet  had  so  much  manners  as 
not  to  jostle  against  it,  nor  openly  practice  that  that  is  inconsistent  there- 
with, as  if  they  would  bid  a  kind  of  defiance  thereunto."     N.  Eng.  373-4. 

This  was  perfectly  proper,  doubtless,  for  the  Puritans  themselves  to 
20 


446  NOTES. 

say  against  all  who  presumed  to  differ  from  ihem.  Had  the  authorities 
of  England  so  talked  to  John  Cotton  and  company,  the  answer  would  have 
been,  in  the  classics'of  Bogue  and  Bennet,  "  You  impose  on  conscience, 
and  are  only  not  worse  than  Satan  himself" 

NOTE  33,  p.  49. 

Chalmers  describes  their  sensations  graphically.  They  "  thought 
themselves  persecuted,  because  they  were  not  allowed  to  persecute." 
(Annals,  p.  135.)  They  did  not  mean  to  show  the  government  any 
mercy,  but  when  they  became  the  government  themselves.  Well  does 
Sir  R.  L'Estrange  say,  "  If  toleration  might  compose  the  difference,  there 
were  some  hope  ;  but  that,  alas,  is  more  than  they  can  afford  the  govern- 
ment."    (Holy  Cheat,  p.  74. — Compare  Nalson's  Countermine,  Ch.  12.) 

NOTE  34,  p.  51. 

Baxter's  "  Reformed  Liturgy,"*  is  a  wondrous  curiosity  on  two  ac- 
cotmts,  not  to  mention  a  dozen  others.  In  disciplining  a  penitent,  the 
minister  may  not  absolve  him  :  that  would  be  hideously  popish.  So  he 
may  "aggravate"  the  sin,  *'  when  it  is  convenient."  (Ref.  Lit.  p.  64.) 
And  this  theory  was  reduced  to  practice.  For,  says  Governor  Winthrop, 
of  an  anti-puritan  transgressor,  "  He  made  a  very  free  and  full  confession 
of  his  offence,  with  much  aggravation  against  himself,  so  as  the  assembly 
were  well  satisfied."  (Sav.  Wint.  i.  326.)  So  then,  not  to  absolve  a 
sin,  i.  e.  to  try  to  make  it  less  than  it  is,  but  to  aggravate  it,  i.  e.  to  try 
to  make  it  worse  than  it  is,  is  the  way  to  improve  upon  Jesuitical  morality  ! 

Now  for  a  further  improvement  upon  language  and  doctrine,  deemed 
too  popish.  The  word  "  Sponsoi-"  is  an  abomination  :  so  the  word  "  Pro- 
parent"  is  adopted.  (Ref  Lit.  p.  38.)  Here  again  is  another  instance  of 
getting  deeper  into  trouble,  by  trjang  to  get  out  of  it.  "  Pro-parent"  is  a 
stronger  term  than  "  Sponsor." — Then  the  Church  of  England  approxi- 
mates too  closely  the  notion  of  Transubstantiation.  So  Baxter  would 
save  her  by  putting  the  following  language  into  her  lips  :  "  This  bread 
and  wine,  being  now  set  apart  and  consecrated  to  this  holy  use,  by  God's 
appointment,  are  now  no  common  bread  and  wine  ;  but  sacramentally  the 
body  and  blood  of  Christ."  (Ref.  Lit.  p.  32.)  After  a  baptism,  to  allude 
to  "  Baptismal  regeneration,"  would  be  heretical.  So  he  gives  thanks  for 
an  infant's  being  made  "  a  member  of  Christ ,t  by  this  sacrament  of  regen- 

*  This  is  best  known,  I  believe;  as  bound  up  with  Calamy's  Life  of  Baxter.  It 
may  be  found  in  a  more  modem  work,  viz.  in  Orme's  edition  of  his  Practical  Works, 
vol.  XT.  449. 

t  This  expreision  in  the  Church  Catechism,  *•  a  member  of  Christ,"  horrifies 


NOTES.  447 

eration."  (Ref.  Lit.  p.  43.)  Let  tinkerers  on  Creeds  and  Liturgies  be- 
ware !  It  would  have  been  a  narrow  escape  for  Baxter,  at  this  day,  not 
to  have  been  doomed  as  a  Puseyite.* — See  the  Reformed  Liturgy  at  the 
end  of  the  first  volume  of  Calamy's  Life  of  Baxter,  for  the  above  quotations. 
{^  There  was  more  of  what  is  now  called  Puseyism  among  the  elder 
ministers  of  Puritan  descent  in  New-England,  than  one  in  a  hundred  is 
aware  of ;  and  as  the  authorities  are  not  of  easy  access  to  Episcopalians, 
I  hope  I  shall  be  pardoned  for  taking  this  opportunity  to  insert  a  few. 

Governor  Winthrop  has  his  child  baptized,  within  eight  days  after  its 
birth,  j  This  is  a  compliance  with  the  letter  of  the  English  rubric,  now  not 
known. 

There  was  a  system  of  Church  Offerings  in  his  day,  also.  Prince's 
Annals,  in  vol.  vii.  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  ser.  pp.  66,  71,  for  both. 

The  Puritans  are  not  aware  how  Popish  they  are,  when  they  talk  of 
dedicating,  and  never  of  consecrating  a  Church  ;  as  if  to  consecrate  were 
profane.  The  word  dedicate  is  the  word  the  Papists  themselves  always 
use.     (Broughton's  Diet.  i.  279.) 

When  an  Episcopalian  talks  of  his  Prayer  Book,  as  the  best  interpre- 
tation of  the  Word  of  God — when  of  the  first  four  General  Councils — 
when  of  Baptismal  regeneration — oh,  what  Popery,  cry  those,  who  claim 
Puritanical  affinity.  But  once  it  was  the  orthodox  doctrine,  that  "  the 
truest  understanding  of  these  things  is  from  the  Platform,"  i.  e.  the  Plat- 
form is  the  true  interpreter  of  the  Bible.  See  an  edition  of  the  Platform,^ 
published  at  Boston,  in  1772,  p.  67.  Then  as  to  the  four  Councils.  In 
the  Preface  to  the  Confession  of  Faith  in  1680,  it  is  said,  not  that  man  has 
owned  them,  but  that  the  Lord  has  done  so  ;  and  that  not  faintly,  but 
signally.  As  to  Baptismal  regeneration,  the  Platform,  ch.  xii.  sect.  7, 
tells  us,  that  baptized  children,  "  if  not  regenerated,  yet  are  in  a  more 
hopeful  way  of  attaining  regenerating  grace,  and  all  the  spiritual  blessings 
both  of  the  covenant  and  seal."  This  is  coming  as  near  to  the  doctrine, 
as  ninety-nine  and  three  quarters  comes  to  a  hundred.  For  mark !  there 
is  a  blessing  not  in  the  Covenant  only,  but  also  in  its  Seal. 

Bome,  when  put  upon  the  lips  of  a  child.  Baxter,  we  see,  copies  it  literally,  and 
applies  it  to  an  infant. 

*  If  what  has  been  said  already  would  not  have  settled  Baxter's  case,  as  a  Pusey- 
ite, the  following  authority  must  be  a  finisher  : 

'•I  dare  not  incur  the  guilt  of  contradicting  two  General  Councils  in  a  matter 
of  faith,  when  they  anathematize  the  Dissenters,  and  agree  therein,  though  disagree- 
ing in  other  things,  and  pleading  the  tradition  of  the  Fathers,  and  the  Scripture." 
Alas  !  the  tradition  of  the  Fathers  to  help  out  Scripture  !  Oh,  luckless  Baxter,  you  are 
now  for  ever  done  for. — See  the  fatal  authority  in  Orme's  Baxter's  Practical  Works, 
XV.  530.  How  could  Mr.  Orme,  as  if  to  make  bad  worse,  put  such  dismal  matter 
among  the  practical  theology  of  the  author  of  the  Saints'  Everlasting  Rest  ? 


448  NOTES. 

By  the  way,  the  acknowledgment  of  the  first  four  General  Councils 
was  no  accidental  matter.  Whitelocke  tells  us  it  was  done,  to  show  how 
the  Puritans  conformed  to  proper  English  law — that  acknowledgment 
being  part  of  the  law  of  the  land.     See  his  Essays,  p.  93. 

The  Puritans  began  their  "  Sabbath,"  as  ihey  called  it,  at  sun-down 
on  Saturday.  For  this  they  claim  most  peculiar  merit.  But,  unfortu- 
nately, this  is  an  old  Romish  custom,  of  which  we  find  traces  in  England, 
when  Popery  was  in  full  blast  there,  and  persecuting  the  reformer  Wicliff. 
See  Gibson's  Codex,  pp.  280,  282.  Or,  for  a  more  modern  and  acces- 
sible authority,  E.  V.  Neale,  on  Feasts  and  Fasts,  pp.  118,  120.* 

This  keeping  of  Saturday  night,  as  holy  time,  is  nothing  but  an  imi- 
tation of  the  vigils  of  the  Romish  and  Oriental  churches  ;  and,  what  is 
particularly  unfortunate  in  the  Puritans,  is  an  imitation  of  the  Romish 
vigils,  which,  as  Mr.  L.  Coleman  the  Congregationalist  confesses,  were 
fasts,  while  the  Oriental  vigils  were  festivals.  (Coleman's  Antiquities, 
p.  431.)  But  this  is  all  natural  ;  for  a  genuine  Puritan  is  quite  in  love 
with  many  a  Romish  practice,  as  we  have  seen  again  and  again.  To 
finish  this  particular  specification,  I  must  say,  that  a  Puritan  uses  Romish 
logic  in  justifying  penalties  for  the  neglect  of  Puritan  holy-days.  For  ex- 
ample. "  As  the  rulers  of  Massachusetts  colony  had  authority  to  com- 
mand the  observance  of  fasts  and  thanksgivings,  they  had  like  power  to 
enforce  the  keeping  of  them."  (Coleman's  Antiquities,  p.  457.)  Oh, 
doubtless.  And  so,  as  the  Pope  and  the  King  of  Spain,  &c.  had  authority 
to  command  the  "  Holy  and  Apostolic  Court  of  the  Inquisition"  to  sit, 
they  had  like  authority  to  enforce  the  keeping  of  its  most  orthodox  decrees. 

As  to  the  use  of  the  Cross  as  a  symbol,  Thomas  Hooker  of  Hartford, 
Connecticut,  wrote  an  essay  in  its  behalf,  which  is  among  the  manu- 
scripts of  the  Mass.  Hist.  Society.  (See  Savage's  Winthrop,  i.  158,  159, 
notes.  Magnalia,  ii.  435,  436.)  Will  they  allow  Episcopalians  to  re- 
print it?     If  so,  the  subscription  shall  be  opened  at  once. 

Episcopalians  have  sometimes  been  scouted  for  saying,  that  a  true 
ministry  and  true  sacraments,  &c.,  go  together.  Nevertheless,  such  was 
the  unequivocal  doctrine  of  the  celebrated  Jus  Divinum  Ministerii  Evan- 
gelici.  Thus,  on  p.  31,  of  Part  Second,  "  If  our  ministry  be  no  true 
ministry,  then  is  our  baptisme  no  true  baptisme,  the  sacrament  of  the 
Lord's  Supper  no  true  sacrament,  our  Church  no  true  Church." 

Noah  Hobart  argued  for  the  Presbyterian  succession,  because  there 
was  vastly  greater  probability  it  had  been  preserved  unbroken,  than  the 

*  For  Festivals,  &c.,  too.  Neale  says,  "  The  dominion  of  the  Long  Parliament 
and  of  Cromwell  was  not  marked  by  any  alteration  in  the  law  concerning  holy  sea- 
ons."     Neale,  p.  191. 


NOTES.  449 

Episcopal.     (Second  Address  to  the  "  Episcopal  Separation  in  N.  Eng 
land,"  p.  82,  etc.)  ] 

President  Stiles  believed  in  bishops,  priests,  and  deacons,  as  jure  di- 
vino  ;  only  they  must  never  be  over  morg  than  one  congregation.  (Stiles' 
Judges,  p.  258.) 

President  Chauncey  believed  in  weekly  communions  ;  and  this,  Baillie 
tells  us,  was  at  first  the  common  practice  of  the  Independents.  (Deane's 
Scituate,  p.  89.     Baillie's  Dissuasive,  p.  121.) 

Cotton  Mather  kept  sixty  fasts  and  twenty  vigils  in  one  year.  (Al- 
len's Biog.  Diet.  p.  568.)  The  Church  of  England  appoints  but  sixteen 
vigils  :  so  this  was  "  positive  reformation."  Mather's  own  diary  tells  us 
of  his  fasts! !     (Compare  Note  70.) 

Dr.  Hemmenway,  in  his  treatise  on  the  Church,  holds  this  language 
about  the  title  of  church  members  to  grace  :  "  Though  the  word  may 
come  to  the  heathen,  as  well  as  church  members,  yet  it  comes  not  to  thera 
by  way  of  covenant,  as  it  doth  to  church  members ;  nor  have  they  any 
promise  of  mercy  beforehand,  as  church  members  have  ;  nor  is  it  chiefly 
belonging  to  such,  but  unto  the  children  of  the  covenant."  (Hemmen- 
way on  the  Church,  p.  120.)  He  was  quoting  an  authority  older  than 
himself,  (his  book  was  published  in  1792,)  on  the  church  membership  of 
children.  So  all  children,  out  of  the  Church,  are  left  to  uncovenanted 
mercies. 

President  Clap  believed  the  clergy  were  the  only  authorized  expound- 
ers of  Holy  Writ.  "  Ministers,  in  their  public  preaching  and  joint  con- 
sultation in  councils,  [councils  divine  if  not  infallible,]  are  an  ordinance, 
appointed  by  God,  to  hold  forth  light  and  truth  to  his  Church,  and  to  de- 
clare the  true  sense  and  meaning  of  Scripture."  (Discourse  on  the  Doc- 
trines of  the  N.  England  Churches,  p.  25,  New  Haven,  1755.)  So,  ac- 
cording to  President  Clap,  the  Church  is  the  interpreter  of  Scripture. 

But  again,  he  abhors  the  word  "  sect."  "  Neither  can  those  who 
adhere  to  the  ancient  doctrines  of  the  Christian  Church,  be  properly  called 
a  party.  That  odious  name  properly  belongs  to  each  of  those  particular 
sects,  which,  from  time  to  time,  oppose  those  doctrines,  and  thereby  make 
themselves  a  party."     (Discourse,  &c.,  p.  39.) 

President  Clap  was  thought,  as  Allen  tells  us  in  his  Biographical  Dic- 
tionary, to  be  rather  too  antiquated  for  his  day.  Yale  College  is  probably 
far  enough  from  his  latitude  now.  At  any  rate,  if  Dr.  Bacon  ever  sit  in 
President  Clap's  chair,  and  will  hold  fofth  his  doctrine  in  the  Discourse 
from  which  I  have  quoted,  I  think  I  can  promise  him  that  he  shall  be 
endorsed  as  a  very  respectable  Puseyite,and  that  he  shall  receive  honorable 
mention  on  the  pages  of  "  The  Churchman"  of  New  York. 


450  NOTES. 

I  cannot  close  this  note  without  a  word  for  our  Baptist  friends,  inasmuch 
as  they  have  employed  an  editor  to  vamp  anew  Neal's  Puritans. 

What  has  become  of  their  ancient  Puseyism,  about  the  laying  on  of 
hands,  in  a  quasi  confirmation  ?  This  was  one  of  their  constant  practices 
formerly.  (See  Benedict's  Baptists,  i.  218,  480,  487,  et  alibi.  Wall  on 
Inf  Bap.  ii.  356.) 

Do  they  ever  practice /our  ordinations'now,Y\z.,  to  the  orders  of 
deacon,  ruling  elder,  preacher  of  the  Gospel,  Evangelist  1  (Benedict,  again, 
their  own  historian,  ii.  176.) 

Do  they  appoint  apostles,  with  episcopal  if  not  apostolic  powers,  as 
they  once  did  l     (Benedict,  ii.  54,  etc.) 

Do  they  ever  practice  "  a  dry  christening"  of  infants  now  ?  (Benedict, 
ii.  107.) 

Finally,  the  Romanists  have  seven  sacraments,  but  the  Baptists  used  to 
have  something  like  nine,  viz.,  "  Baptism,  the  Lord's  Supper,  love-feasts, 
laying  on  of  hands,  washing  feet,  anointing  the  sick,*  right  hand  of  fel- 
lowship, kiss  of  charity,  and  devoting  children."  (Benedict,  ii.  107; 
where  also,  eZdcrs,  elderesses,  deaconesses,  6^c.,are  mentioned.) 

Alas,  alas,  what  incorrigible  people  !  Puseyism  would  not  have  half 
satisfied  their  devouring  appetites  in  those  days. 

NOTE  35,  p.  55. 
Here  are  some  testimonies  respecting  such  men  as  they  hesitated  not 
to  sacrifice,  and  the  indignities  they  heaped  upon  them.  "  Of  the  great 
and  good  Bishop  Hall,"  says  the  biographer  of  the  Puritan  Dr.  Reynolds, 
"  it  is  only  necessary  to  say,  in  this  place,  that  there  is  no  instance  in  the 
history  of  the  enemies  of  the  Church,  of  such  heartless  barbarity,  such 
inconsistent  enmity,  as  they  exerted  against  one  of  the  greatest  orna- 
ments of  religion  and  learning  which  the  seventeenth  century  aflbrds ; 
and  all  this,  because,  in  the  early  days  of  the  Revolution,  he  endeavored 
to  defend  his  Church  by  argument,  which  they  were  determined  to  de- 
stroy by  force."  (Reynolds'  Works,  i.  p.  Uvi.) 

"  And  in  London,"  says  the  biographer  of  Bishop  Sanderson,  "  all 
the  bishops'  houses  were  turned  to  be  prisons,  and  they  filled  with  divines 
that  would  not  take  the  covenant,  or  forbear  reading  Common  Prayer,  or 
that  were  accused  for  some  faults  like  these.  For,  it  may  be  noted,  that 
about  this  time  the  Parliament  sent  out  a  proclamation  to  encourage  all 
laymen  that  had  occasion  to  complain  of  their  ministere  for  being  trou- 
blesome or  scandalous,  or  that  conformed  not  to  orders  of  Parliament,  to 
make  their  complaint  to  a  select  committee  for  that  purpose ;  and  the 

*  Wall  on  Inf.  Bap.  ii.  354. 


NOTES.  451 

minister,  though  one  hundred  miles  from  London,  was  to  appear  there  or 
be  sequestrated  ;  (and  you  may  be  sure  no  parish  could  want  a  covetous, 
or  malicious,  or  cross-grained  complainant ;)  by  which  means  all  prisons 
Lu  London,  and  in  many  other  places,  became  the  sad  habitations  of  con- 
foiTOing  divines."    (Bishop  Sanderson's  Works,  new  ed.  i.  28,  29.) 

Clement  Walker,  a  Presbyterian,  speaking  of  the  grievances  in- 
flicted by  the  Committees,  says,  in  his  History  of  Independency,  Pt.  i.  pp. 
6,  7,  "  That  to  historize  them  at  large,  would  require  a  volume  as  big  as 
the  Book  of  Martyrs  ;  and  that  the  people  were  then  generally  of  opinion 
that  they  might  as  easily  find  charity  in  hell,  as  justice  in  any  committee, 
and  that  the  king  hath  taken  down  one  star-chamber  and  the  parliament 
have  set  up  a  hundred." 

See  this  quoted  in  Lathbury,  pp.  278,  279.     See  also  pp.  196,  197, 
and  quotations  from  Hallam.     Bishop  Hall's  "  Hard  Measure,"  the  state 
ment  of  an  actual  sufferer,  is  in  vol.  i.  of  his  Works. 

Neal  tries  to  smooth  over  the  persecution  by  the  committees  thus : 
"  None  were  turned  out  or  imprisoned  for  their  adhering  to  the  doctrine 
or  discipline  of  the  Church  of  England,  till  after  the  imposing  of  the 
Scots  Covenant  ;*  but  for  immorality,  false  doctrine,  non-residence,  or 
for  taking  part  with  the  king  against  the  parliament." — (Neal,  iii.  50.) 
But  Lilly,  an  impartial  eye-witness ,test\^es  differently.  "  In  these  times, 
many  worthy  ministers  lost  their  livings  or  benefices,  for  not  complying 
with  the  Three-penny  Directory.  Had  you  seen  (O  noble  Esquire)  what 
pitiful  idiots  were  preferred  into  sequestrated  church-benefices,  you  would 
have  grieved  in  your  soul ;  but  when  they  came  before  the  classis  of 
divines,  could  those  simpletons  but  only  say  they  were  converted  by  hear- 
ing such  a  sermon,  such  a  lecture,  of  that  godly  man  Hugh  Peters,  Ste- 
phen Marshall,  or  any  of  that  gang,  he  was  presently  admitted."  (Lilly's 
Memoirs,  new  edit.  pp.  136,  137.)  All  this  might  easily  be  done,  in  an 
age  which  imprisoned  Jeremy  Taylor  for  a  frontispiece  to  his  Holy  Living 
and  Dying  ;  and  tried  to  deprive  the  profound  Pococke  on  the  ground  of 
ignorance  ! ! — (Lathbury,  pp.  188,  280.  See  also  Walker's  Sufferings  of 
the  Clergy,  and  Mercurius  Rusticus,  passim.) 

If,  to  all  this,  we  add  Cromwell's  forbidding  the  sequestered  clergy, 
after  reducing  them  to  beggary,  from  so  much  as  school-keeping,  to  save 
themselves  from  absolute  starvation  ;  and  also  his  project  for  decimating 
the  already  ruined  estates  of  the  cavaliers  throughout  England,  it  may 
with  truth  be  said,  that  the  apostate  emperor  Julian  was  less  cruel  to 
Christians,  than  Independents,  alias  Puritans,  to  Churchmen.     (See  the 

*  As  to  the  Covenant,  no  wonder  Churchmen  were  superstitiously  afraid  of  it  j  for 
it  was  found  to  contain  six  articles  and  666  words  :  "  the  number  of  the  beast.'' — 
Querela  Cantabrigiensis,  Lond,  1685,  p.  205. 


452  NOTES. 

notes  in  Harris's  Cromwell,  pp.  436-446.  Compare  the  Bulwark  Storm- 
ed, pp.  86,  87.) — All  this  is  in  keeping  with  Puritan  principles  ;  for  says 
a  Puritan  author,  often  quoted,  "  There  is  no  room  in  Christ's  army  for 
toleratorists."    (Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  Ser.  viii.  34.) 

NOTE  36,  p.  56. 

The  connexion  between  Puritans  and  Papists  has  often  been  ques- 
tioned ;  and  accordingly  I  subjoin  a  list  of  authorities,  which  may  satisfy 
those  who  have  no  means  of  examining  themselves,  and  enable  those 
who  have,  to  see  whether  the  thing  is  so  rashly  maintained,  as  Puritan 
writers  would  fain  teach.* 

Leslie's  Works,  folio  ii.  94,  560.  Or,  vol.  iv.  190,  new  edit. — Lon- 
don Cases,  iii.  257,  etc.  303,  etc.  with  numerous  references. — Fowler  on 
Christian  Liberty,  edit.  1680,  p.  207. — Nalson's  Countermine,  p.  11. — 
Sherlock  on  Rel.  Assemblies,  3d  ed.  1700,  p.  224.— Laud's  Troubles, 
folio,  p.  587.— Dissenter  Disarmed,  London,  1681.  Pt.  i.  141,  142.  pt. 
ii.  41.  This  book  is  now  very  rare,  I  will  therefore  so  far  allude  to  the 
last  reference  as  to  say,  it  mentions  familiarly  together  the  names  of 
Jesuits  and  Puritans,  to  show  how  they  were  associated  in  the  minds  of 
the  people.  It  calls  the  first  "  Puritan-Papist,"  and  the  last  "  Puritan- 
Protestant."  And  it  is  remarkable  that  Bishop  Montague,  so  strongly 
suspected  of  popery  himself,  should  have  called  the  Jesuits  "  Puritan- 
Papists,"  long  before.  See  his  Appeal,  pp.  112,  113.  "Our  revolters 
unto  popery,"  said  he,  "  were  Puritans,  avowed  or  addicted,  first."  No 
wonder  they  tried  to  ward  off  his  keen  truth,  by  calling  him  a  Papist. 

Calamy's  Baxter,  i.  100,  101,  102,  103.— Baxter,  in  his  dislike  of 
some  things  in  the  Independents,  tries  to  make  out  how  the  Papists 
deluded  and  used  them.  "  The  friars  and  Jesuits  were  their  deceivers, 
and,  under  several  vizors,  were  dispersed  among  them."t  So  here  is 
Richard  Baxter  admitting  that  the  Puritans  and  Jesuits  were  intermin- 
gled !  !  This  accords  fully  with  the  records  of  old  Strype,  whom  I  would 
quote  if  I  could,  but  the  note  would  be  too  long.  See  Strype's  Annals, 
folio,  of  1709.  For  the  year  1560,  chap.  ix.  pp.  220,  221.  Also  for 
1568,  chap.  Iii.  pp.  521,  522. 

♦  Compare  Orme's  Baxter's  Works,  i.  642  j  where,  besides  Baxter's  testimony, 
may  be  found  Archbishop  Usher's,  and  Archbishop  Bramhall's. 

f  There  is  a  curious  coincidence  between  Popery  and  Puritanism,  which  I  be- 
lieve few  know,  i.e.  their  multiplying  the  Notes  of  the  Church  beyond  those  given  in 
the  ancient  Creeds.  The  Creeds  say  that  the  Church  is  one,  holy,  catholic,  apostolic, 
i.  p.  has/oMr  notes  or  marks.  But  Popery  by  Bellarmine  says  she  has  Jifieen,  and 
Congregationalism  by  Bartlet  that  she  has  seren.  Both  indulge  private  judgment,  on 
such  a  subject.— See  Bellarmine's  Notes,  ed.  1840.— Bartlet's  Congregational  1  Way, 
647,  p  139. 


NOTES.  453 

Collier's  Ecc.  Hist.  ii.  518  ;  or,  vi.  463. — Dugdale's  Short  View,  &c. 
p.  16,  &c. — Maddox's  Vindication,  pp.  6,  183,  184. — Lavington's  En- 
thusiasm of  Methodists  and  Papists  Compared,  part.  ii.  p.  179,  &.c.  ed. 
1749. — Carwithen's  Ch.  of  Eng.  ii.  94,  with  references  in  a  note. — Th. 
Fuller's  Thoughts,  p.  269  :  Papists  :  he  says,  "  multiply  as  maggots  in 
May,  and  act  in  and  under  the  fanatics." — Saywell  against  Baxter,  p. 
329. — Stillingfleet's  Unreasonableness  of  Separation.  The  Preface. — 
South's  Sermons,  ii.  40. — Barwick  on  the  Church,  pp.  xix,  xx. — Jones 
of  Nayland's  Theological  Works,  v.  60.— Wall  on  Baptism,  Oxf.  ed.  1835, 
ii.  371,  etc. — Pullers  Moderation,  chap.  xvii.  sect.  7,  or,  p.  291,  «fec. 
new  edit. — Stephens'  Life  of  Archbp.  Sharp,  pp.  258,  554. — Lathbury's 
Eng.  Epis.  p.  45,  Sec — British  Critic,  xv.  67. — Perceval's  Apost.  Succ. 
ch.  vi.  obj.  3. — Finally,  the  Puritans  believed  in  extreme  unction.  See 
Th.  Goodwin's  Works,  vol.  iv.  Treatise  on  Ch.  Gov't,  p.  387,  etc.* 
What  has  become  of  this  ancient,  more  than  Puseyite  practice  ]  did  the 
Presbyterians  laugh  them  out  of  it  ?  Mr.  Edwards  speaks  very  scorn- 
fully of  it,  in  the  preface  to  his  Gangraena  :  to  say  nothing  of  his  efforts. 
Ft.  i.  p.  40,  to  show  the  strong  likeness  between  all  the  sectaries  of  his 
day,  (among  whom,  p.  12,  he  puts  the  Puritan-Independents,)  and  the 
worst  of  Rome's  orders — the  Jesuits. 

Upon  this  entire  "  squadron  of  authorities,"  as  Master  Prynne  would 
say,  I  will  make  but  one  remark  ;  and  that  relates  to  p.  6,  of  Bishop 
Maddox.  He  there  shows,  that  the  Puritans  copy  the  Jesuits  in  their 
"  ceremonial  accoutrements."  The  Puritans  wished  to  avoid  the  sur- 
plice, which  resembles  the  dress  of  a  Romish  parish-priest,  and  therefore 
they  adopted  a  black  gown,  which  resembles  the  dress  of  the  Jesuits.  So 
the  black  gown  of  Geneva  is  an  outward  imitation  of  Jesuitry ! !  I  may 
well  ask,  under  the  Presbyterian  auspices  of  Mr.  Edwards,  is  that  the 
only  way  in  which  its  adherents  have  copied  it  ?t 

NOTE  37,  p.  56. 
I  presume,  by  a  little  research  among  modern  pubhcations,  it  would  be 
easy  to  pick  up  many  a  sad  forewaraing  by  Churchmen,  of  the  consequen- 
ces of  a  union  of  Romanists  and  Dissenters.  I  have  not  the  means  at  hand 
to  enable  me  to  give  references.  One  or  two,  perhaps,  may  suffice  for  a 
hundred.  Mr.  Southey  speaks  strongly  upon  the  subject,  on  p.  xvi.  Pref.  to 
his  Vindiciae  Ecclesiae  Anglicanae.    Also,  p.  518,  in  the  body  of  his  book. 

*  Compare  Edwards'  Antapologia,  pp.  36,  £62.— Wall  on  Inf.  Bap.  ii.  354. 

•f  The  Edinburgh  Review,  in  spite  of  its  whiggery,  answers  this  question  against 
the  Puritans  ;  for  it  candidly  says,  "  in  spite  of  their  hatred  of  Popery,  they  too 
often  fell  into  the  worst  vices  of  that  bad  system."    Selections  Edinb.  Rev.  ii.  60. 

20* 


454  NOTES. 

NOTE  38,  p.  57. 

This  mode  of  argument  (the  calling  of  hard  names)  was  one  afterwards 
paid  back  upon  themselves,  even  in  New  England.  Mrs.  Hutchinson 
and  her  followers  called  the  Puritan  ministers  "  Baal's  priests,  Popish 
factors,"  &c.  &c.  &-c.  (See  Upham's  "Vane,  p.  133,  etc.)  Whitfield  and 
his  followers  dealt  in  the  same  commodity,  even  more  liberally.  Dr. 
Chauncey  has  collected  a  tremendous  catalogue,  on  pp.  249,  250,  of  his 
*'  Seasonable  Thoughts,"  published  in  1743.  Whitfield  must  have  been 
tart  and  bitter  ;  but  sometimes,  I  suspect,  he  found  his  match.  "  In  a 
company  of  gentlemen,  where  Father  Flynt,  who  was  a  preacher  and 
many  years  a  tutor  at  Cambridge,  was  present,  Mr.  Whitfield  said,  '  It  is 
my  opinion  that  Dr.  Tillotson  is  now  in  hell  for  his  heresy.'  Father 
Flynt  replied,  '  It  is  my  opinion  you  will  not  meet  him  there.'  "  (Mass. 
Hist.  Coll.  2dser.  iii.  211.) 

Doubtless  it  will  be  said,  that  Churchmen  were  as  violent  against 
the  Puritans,  as  the  Puritans  against  them.  But  I  may  confidently  ap- 
peal to  Sir  Matthew  Hale,  as  a  most  impartial  witness  upon  this  subject. 
In  his  "  True  Religion,"  published  by  Richard  Baxter  (!),  he  bears  the 
following  remarkable  testimony :  "  1  do  remember  when  Ben  Johnson 
made  his  play  of  the  Alchymist,  wherein  he  brings  in  Ananias,  in  de- 
rision of  the  persons  then  called  Puritans,  with  many  of  their  phrases  in 
use  among  them,  taken  out  of  the  Scriptures,  with  a  design  to  render  that 
sort  of  persons  ridiculous,  and  to  gain  applause  to  his  wit  and  fancy.  But 
although  those  persons  were  not  in  very  good  esteem  among  the  great 
ones  and  gallants,  yet  the  play  was  disliked,  and  indeed  abhorred  ;  be- 
cause it  seemed  to  reproach  religion  itself,  though  intended  only  to  render 
the  Puritans  ridiculous."  (Edit.  1684,  p.  44.)  Now,  surely,  those  who 
visited  a  play-house  would  not  be  so  sensitive  as  the  soberer  part  of  an 
Episcopal  community ;  and  yet,  Judge  Hale  and  Richard  Baxter  be- 
ing witnesses,  even  they  were  not  disposed  to  ridicule  the  religion  of  the 
Puritans.  But  it  was  the  religion  of  Churchmen,  principally,  on  which 
Puritans  poured  out  their  bitterest  vituperations. 

NOTE  39,  p.  57. 
Bishop  Meade  of  Virginia  will  surely  be  admitted  as  unexceptionable 
testimony,  to  the  conduct  and  character  of  the  English  bishops,  though 
he  do  wear  the  lawn  himself  No  Presbyterian  or  Puritan  doubts  his 
evangelical  character.  Yet  he  says  as  follows,  in  his  Address  to  his  Con- 
vention in  1844.  "  As  to  the  Church  of  England,  it  is  a  well  known  fact, 
that  not  only  were  bishops  chief  martyrs  of  the  Reformation,  but  when, 
at  any  time,  there  was  evinced  a  disposition  to  return  again  to   Romish 


NOTES.  455 

doctrines  and  practices,  the  bishops  were,  for  the  most  part,  the  decided 
opponents  of  it.  The  history  of  the  Church  of  England  will  show,  that 
they  were  generally  for  moderate  measures,  not  so  much  towards  Rome, 
as  towards  those  who  had  separated  from  the  English  Church,  being 
anxious  not  for  union  with  Rome,  but  for  comprehension  of  those  who  pro- 
tested against  Rome  ;  and  could  their  wise  and  conciliatory  councils 
have  prevailed,  on  more  than  one  Occasion  the  breaches  might  have  been 
in  some  good  degree  repaired."  Again,  he  blames  the  unreasonableness 
of  the  Puritans.  "  In  England,  when  the  Puritans  objected  to  some  few 
of  them,  [expressions  in  the  Liturgy,]  there  were  those  among  the  bishops 
and  clergy  who  were  willing  to  have  omitted,  or  modified  them  ;  believ- 
ing that  naught  of  the  true  doctrine  of  the  Reformers  or  of  the  Bible  would 
be  lost  thereby,  and  but  for  the  unreasonableness  of  the  opposite  party  it 
would  have  been  done.'     (Bishop  Meade's  Address,  1844,  pp.  5,  9.) 

With  this  compare  Milton's  portraiture  of  the  English  Bishops. — 
"  But  they,  contrary,  that  by  the  impairing  and  diminution  of  the  true 
faith,  the  distresses  and  servitude  of  their  country,  aspire  to  high  dignity, 
rule  and  promotion  here,  after  a  shameful  end  in  this  life,  (which  God 
grant  them,*)  shall  be  thrown  down  eternally  into  the  darkest  and  deepest 
gulf  of  hell,  where,  under  the  despiteful  control,  the  trample  and  spurn 
of  all  the  other  damned,  that,  in  the  anguish  of  their  torture,  shall  have 
no  other  ease  than  to  exercise  a  raving  and  bestial  tyranny  over  them  as 
slaves  and  negroes,  they  shall  remain  in  that  plight  forever,  the  basest,  the 
lowermost,  the  most  dejected,  most  underfoot,  and  down-trodden  vassals 
of  perdition."  See  his  "Reformation  in  England,"  at  the  end.  (Prose 
Works,  p.  21.     Lond.  ed.  1838.) 

But  how  could  the  heads  of  the  Church  expect  more  mercy,  when  even 
the  humble  tenants  of  its  orchestras  were  thus  berated  by  Prynne : — 
"  Choristers  bellow  the  tenor,  as  it  were  oxen  ;  bark  a  counterpart,  as  it 
were  a  kennel  of  dogs  ;  roar  out  a  treble,  as  it  were  a  sort  of  bulls  ;  and 
grunt  out  a  bass,  as  it  were  a  number  of  hogs."  Prynne  could  not  say 
that  they  sung  Romanism,  if  he  could  that  Archbishop  Laud  wrote  it ; 
and  yet  to  make  the  Church  ridiculous,  he  spared  not  even  them. — 
(Hone's  Year  Book,  p.  66.     Granger's  Biog.  Diet.  2d  ed.  i.  205.) 

NOTE  40,  p.  59. 
Their  opinions  of  the  Canons  I  have  not  given.     They  may  be  formed 
from  the  title  of  a  book  published  in   1640.     "England's  complaint  to 
Jesus  Christ,  against  the  Bishops'  canons  of  the  late  sinful  synod,  a  sedi- 

*  The  curses  of  Popery,  as  the  Quakers  well  know,  were  never  objected  to  by  the 
Puritans. 


456  NOTES 

tious  conventicle,  a  pack  of  hypocrites,  a  sworn  confederacy,  a  traitorous 
conspiracy  against  the  true  religion  of  Christ,  and  the  weal  of  the  public 
of  the  land,  and  consequently  against  the  kingdom  and  crown."  Locke's 
Works,  X.  244,  note. 

It  may  be  supposed  that  when  the  Puritans  got  scot  free  from  Ap. 
Laud,  they  left  such  language  behind  them.  Not  so.*  They  took  what 
Cotton  Mather  calls  "  the  revenges  of  a  deep  repentance,"  on  this  side  of 
the  Atlantic.  Dr.  Chauncey  thus  rails  at  the  Liturgy,  &c.,  forty  years 
after  he  had  abandoned  them,  and  when  he  came  to  die  !  Among  his 
chief  sins  to  be  mourned  for  at  that  awful  hour,  he  especially  desired 
to  remember  his  "  many  sinful  compliances  with,  and  conformity  unto, 
vile  human  inventions,  and  will-worship,  and  hell-bred  superstition,  and 
patcheries  stitcht  into  the  service  of  the  Lord  :  which  the  English  Mass 
Book,  I  mean  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  and  the  ordination  of  priests, 
&c.,  are  fully  fraught  withal."  And  with  such  language,  recorded  in  his 
last  will  and  testament,  he  supposed  himself  going  to  that  blessed  place, 
where  the  greatest  of  the  virtues — one  that  leaves  repentance,  faith,  and 
hope,  all,  all  behind  it — is  charity !     (Mather's  Magnalia,  i.  421.) 

NOTE  41,  p.  60. 
As  a  specimen  of  what  they  would  substitute  for  the  Litany,  I  give 
an  extract  from  a  mock  Litany,  quoted  by  Harris. 
"  From  this  prelatical  pride  and  their  lordly  dignities. 
From  all  their  superstitious  vanities  and  Popish  ceremonies. 
From  their  most  corrupt  courts  and  their  vexing  slaveries. 
From  their  fruitless  shadows  and  hypocritical  formalities, 
From  their  hatred  and  malice  against  Christ's  appointed  ordinances. 
From  their  sinful  synods  and  all  their  papal  hierarchy. 
From  Abaddon  and  ApoUyon,  with  their  priests,  Jesuits, 
their  favorites  and  all  their  furious  blasphemers. 

Good  Lord  deliver  us  J" 
(Harris's  Cromwell,  p.  49.)     Who  but  a  furious  blasphemer  could  in- 
dite such  a  Litany  as  this  1 

NOTE  42,  p.  60. 
The  Puritans  appropriated  all  Scripture   to  themselves,  in   the  most 
wholesale  way.     There  was  a  book  of  metre  Psalms  set  forth  by  Parlia- 
ment in  1644.     Psalm  94,  verse  7,  reads  thus  : 

*  The  same  language  almost  is  used  in  England,  to  this  day.     See  the  tracts  of 
•'  The  Rev.  William  Thorn,  Winchester."    Here  are  the  titles  of  two  :  "  All  Church 
People  essentially  Papists" — "  The  Church  more  opposed  to  Dissent  than  to  Immo 
rality,"  &c.  Sec.    This  is  a  winning  way  to  convert  Churchmen  i 


NOTES.  457 

The  Lord  yet  shall  not  see,  they  say, 
JVor  Jacobus  Qod  shall  note. 

In  the  margin  there  is  a  note  to  explain  to  the  reader,  that  by  "  Jacob's 
God"  is  meant  "  the  God  of  the  Puritans."  [Lathbury,  p.  311,  note.) 
It  is  curious,  hut  not  very  surprising,  to  find  the  Mohammedans  appro- 
priating the  Psalms  in  the  same  way.     (Ockley's  Saracens,  p.  192.) 

NOTE  43,  p.  63. 

The  Christian  Observer's  opinion  has  been  quoted,  because  many  are 
governed  by  the  opinion  of  volumes  vi'hich  they  are  familiar  with,  and 
accustomed  to  respect.  Really,  however,  it  is  by  no  means  so  strong  in 
expression,  or  in  fact,  as  the  following  from  an  "  old  school"  Presbyte- 
rian, who  lived  in  the  days  of  the  Puritans,  and  saw  their  excesses  with 
his  own  eyes.  "  And  we  find  it  by  experience  in  England,  how,  since 
the  Reformation  began  in  the  first  and  second  years  of  the  Parliament, 
wherein  we  thought  the  devil  had  and  should  have  been  cast  out  of  Eng- 
land, what  fresh  footing  he  hath  got  again.  And  I  am  confident  that, 
for  the  present,  the  devil  hath  gained  more  in  the  matter  of  false  doc- 
trine, disorder,  deformation,  anarchy,  and  libertinism,  than  he  lost  in  the 
Reformation,  by  putting  down  of  many  Popish  errors,  superstitious  prac- 
tices and  tyrannies.  Yea,  I  think  it  may  be  said  safely,  that  the  devil 
hath  had  a  more  plentiful  harvest  this  last  year  in  England,  than  ever  in 
any  one  year  since  the  Reformation.  Nay,  certainly  more  damnable 
doctrines,  heresies,  and  blasphemies,  have  been  of  late  vented  among  us 
than  in  fourscore  years  before."*  And  again.  "  The  points  complained 
of  in  Dr.  Jackson,  Bishop  Montague,  &c.,  were  harmlesse,  wholesome 
errors,  (if  any  errors  could  be  harmlesse  and  wholesome,)  in  comparison 
of  many  errors  in  this  catalogue.  [Jackson,  Montague,  &c.,  were  the 
Puseyites,  be  it  remembered,  of  those  days.]     Certainly  if  Mahomet  were 

*  Compare  Dr.  Owen  himself.  "  If  vain  spending  of  time,  talents,  unprofitableness 
in  men's  places,  envy,  strife,  variance,  emulations,  wrath,  pride,  worldliness,  selfish- 
ness, be  badges  of  Christians,  we  have  them  on  us  and  among  us,  in  abundance."—"  Oh 
what  a  picture  of  Puritanism  by  a  Puritan's  very  self. — See  Owen's  Mortification  of 
Sin  in  Believers,  p.  29. — And  again,  more  plainly  still,  in  another  of  his  treatises  :  "  He 
that  should  see  the  prevailing  part  of  these  nations,  many  of  those  in  rule,  power,  fa- 
vor, with  all  their  adherents,  and  remember  that  they  were  a  colony  of  Puritans,  whose 
habitation  was  in  a  low  place,  as  the  prophet  speaks  of  the  city  of  God,  translated  by 
an  high  hand  to  the  mountains  they  now  possess,  cannot  but  wonder  how  soon  they 
have  forgot  the  customes,  manners,  ways  of  their  own  old  people,  and  are  cast  into 
the  mould  of  them  that  went  before  them  in  the  places  whereunto  they  are  translated. 
*  *  What  were  those  before  us  that  ice  are  not  ?  what  did  they  which  we  do  not  ?"  Ow- 
en's Book  of  Temptations,  pp.  55,  56.— Compare  Nelson's  Life  of  Bull,  ed.  1827,  p. 
44. — Hey's  Lectures,  Book.  iv.  Art.  xi.  Sec.  12. 


458  NOTES. 

now  alive  among  us,  he  would  be  a  gallant  fellow  in  these  times,  and  be 
in  great  request  for  his  revelations  and  New  Light.  Yea,  we  are  fain 
to  that  madnesse  and  folly,  that  I  am  persuaded,  if  the  devil  came  visibly 
among  many,  and  held  out  Independency,  and  liberty  of  conscience,  and 
should  preach  never  such  false  doctrines  ;  as  that  there  were  no  devils,  no 
hell,  no  sin  at  all,  but  these  were  only  men's  imaginations,  with  several 
other  doctrines,  he  would  be  cried  up,  followed,  admired.  And  if  it  should 
happen  he  were  complained  of  and  questioned  by  some  Press yteriaus, 
(for  to  be  sure  sectaries  would  not,)  he  would  have  some  or  other  to 
speak  for  him,  and  help  to  bring  him  off."  (Edwards'  Gangraena,  Pt,  ii. 
pp.  67,  68,  75.  Third  edit.  London,  1646  ) 

Does  any  one  now  say  my  comments  on  Puritanism  are  severe  ?  I 
defy  the  production  from  my  pages,  of  any  thing  comparable  to  the  se- 
verity of  this  Presbyterian,  who  saw  it,  and  described  it,  with  its  image 
in  living  array  before  him  !  This  acknowledgment  of  Edwards  is  of  im- 
mense value  as  testimony  ;  and  as  to  the  confusion,  heresy,  &c., 
of  Puritan  times,  Dr.  Reynolds  himself  uses  language  scarcely  less 
emphatic.  See  his  Sermon  before  Parliament,  previous  to  the  Restora- 
tion, but  when  Cromwell  was  dead,  and  he  was  not  afraid  to  speak  out ! 
Life  in  his  Works,  i.  pp.  Ivii.,  Iviii.  See  also  the  very  strong  language  of 
the  London  ministers  in  1647,  in  their  testimony  to  the  "  Solemn  League 
and  Covenant" — Quoted  in  Stephens'  Life  of  Ap.  Sharp,  pp.  554,  555. 
This  testimony  confessed  that  instead  of  a  reformation,  they  had  a  de- 
formation of  religion. — See  also  Chauncey's  "  Seasonable  Thoughts," 
pp.  351,352. 

NOTE  44,  p.  63. 

Compare  such  instances  as  honest  old  Howell,  a  layman  too,  gives  in 
his  Familiar  Letters  ;  and  of  which  he  says  he  "  could  produce  a  cloud 
of  examples."  (Book  iv.  Lett.  43,  or  p.  506.)  People  wonder  at  the 
strength  of  our  expressions  respecting  the  Puritans.  Howell  saw  them 
with  his  own  eyes,  and  this  is  his  record.  "  Difference  in  opinion  may 
work  a  disaffection  in  me,  but  not  a  detestation.  I  rather  pity  than  hate 
Turk,  or  Infidel;  for  they  are  of  the  same  metal,  and  bear  the  same 
stamp  as  I  do,  though  the  inscriptions  differ.  If  I  hate  any,  'tis  those 
schismatics  that  puzzle  the  sweet  peace  of  our  Church  ;  so  that  I  could 
be  content  to  see  an  Anabaptist  go  to  hell  on  a  Brotcnisfs  back."  (Book 
i.  Section  vi.  Lett.  32.)  Now  the  Puritans  thought  the  Anabaptists  the 
most  horrible  of  all  sectaries  in  their  day.  Yet  here  is  an  impartial  ob- 
server, who  gives  them  the  preference  to  the  Puritanical  Brownists. 


NOTES.  459 

NOTE  45,  p.  63. 
Grant's  Eng.  Ch.,  i.  456.     Also,  Maskell's  Martin  MarPrelate,   p. 
197.*     Possibly  it  may  amuse  some  of  my  readers  to  see  part  of  the 
epitaph,  which  church-wits  of  the  day  wrote  for  the  traitors  alluded  to 
by  Mr.  Grant. 

Hie  jacet,  ut  pinus,  O  vos  Martinistae, 

Nee  Caesar,  nee  Ninus,  Et  vos  Brownistae, 

Nee  Petrus,  nee  Linus,  Et  vos  Barrowistse, 

Nee  Magnus  Godwin  us,  Et  vos  Atheistse, 

Nee  plus,  nee  minus,  Et  Anabaptistse, 

Quam  clandestinus,  Et  vos  Hacketistae, 

Miser  ille  Martinus,  ^  Et  Wiggintonistae, 

Videte  Singuli.  Et  omnes  Sectistse, 

Quorum  dux  fuit  iste, 
Lugete  Singuli. 

NOTE  46,  p.  64. 

The  kindness  of  the  English  Government  to  Protestant  refugees  from 
the  Continent,  is  ascribed  by  Neal  to  Archbp.  Grindal ;  so  reluctant  is 
he  that  Queen  Elizabeth  should  have  a  jot  of  praise  for  it.  (Neal  i.  395, 
note.)  De  Laune  even  abuses  the  government  for  criminal  partiality,  on 
account  of  it.  "  Is  it  not,"  he  says,  "  a  wonderful  contradiction  to  abet, 
succor,  and  relieve  the  French  Presbyterian  Dissenters,  under  their  cniel 
persecution  for  their  non-conformity,  and  yet,  at  the  same  time,  to  exer- 
cise all  that  cruelty,  ruin,  and  destruction  to  the  English  Presbyterian  non- 
conformist :  like  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  who  built  the  tombs  of  the 
prophets,  and  at  the  same  time  killed  the  prophets?"  (De  Laune' s  Plea, 
h^c.  p.  102. t)  Not  at  all,  Mr.  De  Laune  ;  for  you  yourself  admit,  on 
p.  96,  that  "  If  some  of  the  non-conformists  are  found  tardy,  on  good 
proof,  let  them  suffer  the  penalty  of  the  law."  Now  multitudes  of  them 
were  tardy  enough  to  be  contented  and  quiet ;  and  the  government  had 
to  try  its  ferule,  as  a  schoolmaster  on  refractory  pupils.  Besides,  your 
complaint  shows,  incontestably,  what  we  Churchmen  want  to  show,  that 
the  government  did  make  a  distinction,  and  a  great  distinction.  It,  just 
as  you  say,  abetted,  succored,  and  relieved  the  peaceable  and  submissive : 
those  who  would  tolerate  England,  if  England  would  tolerate  them. 

*  The  reading  by  Maskell  varie.s  a  little  from  the  one  given.  Doubtless  there 
were  many  versions  of  it. 

t  My  edition  is  the  Boston  one  of  1763,  This  was  the  era  of  the  Mayhew  and 
Althorp  controversy,  of  which  I  must  speak  by  and  by  ;  and  it  was  no  doubt  put  forth 
then,  to  heighten,  if  possible,  bad  impressions  against  Episcopacy.  De  Laune  had 
Buffered  for  his  Plea,  eighty  years  previously. 


460  NOTES. 

This  book  of  De  Laune's,  by  the  way,  is  one  of  the  Puritan  master- 
pieces.* Doubtless  many  have  heard  of  it,  who  never  heard  how  eflec- 
tually  it  was  answered  by  E.  Hart  and  Dr.  Brett,  in  the  "  Bulwark 
Stormed."  My  copy  bears  date  London,  1717.  The  Puritans  (and 
their  coadjutors  the  Baptists,  when  Episcopacy  is  to  be  annihilated)  are 
sadly  ignorant  of  the  answers  made  to  their  philippics  ;  for  an  Episcopal 
book,  to  many  of  them,  has  poison  in  its  very  cover.  For  example,  to 
my  perfect  amazement,  I  once  heard  a  Baptist,  afterwards  a  president  of 
a  college,  speak  of  Campbell's  Lectures  on  Ecc.  History,  as  a  book 
Churchmen  had  never  so  much  as  pretended  to  answer.  When  I  named 
Skinner's  Truth  and  Order  to  him,  he  stared  like  a  man  electritied. 

NOTE  47,  p.  65. 
"  The  Queen's  preference  for  Churchmen,"  says  vone  who  favors  the 
Puritans  as  much  as  he  can,  "was  inevitable.  She  disfavored  the  Puri- 
tans, not  only  for  disputing  her  authority,  but  as  in  her  judgment  distract- 
ing the  Protestant  party.  The  season  for  open  war  against  the  Catho- 
lics was  fast  approaching."  (Mackintosh's  Eng.  in  one  vol.  p.  374, 
Chap  xviii.)  This  shows,  clearly,  that  the  Queen  did  not  oppose  the 
Puritans  from  that  love  of  Popery,  which  has  been  slanderously  imputed 
to  her.  They  criminally,  not  to  say  foolishly,  weakened  their  own  side, 
and  hers  too ;  while  Popery  rejoiced  in  the  distractions  of  Protestants, 
and  hoped  to  crush  them  all  indiscriminately.  No  wonder  she  was  vexed  : 
any  good  Protestant  ought  to  have  been.  Sir  James's  testimony  is  very 
important,  and  should  be  well  remembered.  Puller's  defence  of  the  Gov- 
ernment from  the  charge  of  persecution,  raised  on  this  side  by  Romanist?, 
and  on  that  by  Separatists,  is  well  worth  examination.  (Moderation, 
Ch.  xiii.  §.  8,  or  p.  235,  new  edit.) 

NOTE  48,  p.  65. 
This  pretence  of  Mr.  Neal's  looks  very  suspicious.  Puritans  were 
not  apt  to  deal  in  fool's  play.  Their  native  language  looks  much  more 
like  Gov.  Winthrop's  postscript  to  that  most  unfortunate  victim  of  long- 
armed  vengeance,  who  was  dragged  from  Rhode  Island  to  Boston — I 
mean  Samuel  Gorton.  "  You  must  know%  withal,"  says  the  Governor, 
"  that  the  Court  did  not  intend  their  order  should  be  a  scare-crow,  (as 

*  De  Laune  annexes  to  his  Plea  his  trial,  fine,  &c.  De  Laune  was  tried  in  1683. 
Checkley  was  tried  and  fined,  as  a  libeller,  in  1724,  more  than  forty  years  after,  for 
publishing  Leslie  on  Episcopacy.  And  still,  in  the  very  place  of  Checkley's  trial, 
[Boston]  they  proclaim  De  Laune's  story  in  1763.  They.had  contrived  to  forgetpoor 
Checkley. 


NOTES.  461 

you  write  ;)  for  you  will  find  it  real  and  effectual,  if  you  transgress  it." 
(R.  I.  Hist.  Coll.  ii.  152.)  This  sounds  like  Puritan  vernacular;  and 
completely  sets  at  naught  Neal's  poetical  version  of  in  terror  em. 

NOTE  49,  p.  69. 
Mr.  Leonard  Bacon,  in  his  Address  before  the  New  England  Society, 
Dec.  22,  1838,  is  completely  gravelled  by  the  Restoration.  He  blames 
the  Puritans  for  it  excessively  ;  and  calls  the  people  who  allowed  it,  in- 
fatuated. Meanwhile,  let  us  take  all  the  comfort  we  can,  from  his  wry- 
faced  concessions.  He  admits  that  it  was  the  faults  of  the  Puritans 
themselves,  which  occasioned  the  Restoration  ;  and  that  it  was  the 
People  who  got  tired  of  them,  and  preferred  to  be  emancipated  from 
their  yoke,  rather  than  from  the  thraldom  of  Episcopacy.  But  let  us 
hear  him.  "  By  their  errors  and  faults,  the  great  cause,  which  their  vir- 
tue so  earnestly  espoused,  and  their  valor  so  strongly  defended,  was 
wrecked  and  almost  ruined.  But  dearly  did  they  pay,  in  disappointment, 
in  persecution,  in  many  sufferings,  in  the  contempt  which  was  heaped 
upon  them  by  the  infatuated  people  they  had  vainly  struggled  to  emanci- 
pate— the  penalty  of  their  faults  and  errors."  (Address,  p.  29.)  Charles 
I.  was  beheaded  Jan.  30,  1648  ;  and  Charles  H.  was  restored  May  29, 
1660.  So  the  sovereign  empire  of  Puritanism  was  about  twelve  years 
long.*  And  now,  query  :  Could  that  cause  be  so  exceedingly  virtuous 
and  valorous,  whose  own  faults  and  errors  wrecked  and  ruined  it  before 
it  got  into  its  <cen« ;  and  could  they  be  a  very  infatuated  people,  who 
found  out  so  soon  how  hollow  were  its  promises  of  blessed  emancipation  ? 

NOTE  50,  p.  71. 
Well  might  he,  for  two  things,  to  say  no  more.  When  Nicholas 
Upshal  (himself  a  Puritan)  ventured  to  expostulate  with  Endicott,  he  had 
him  fined,  imprisoned,  and  banished  ;  and  though  he  was  weakly  and  old, 
and  it  was  winter,  he  said, '  Til  not  hate  him  one  groat:  Poor  Upshal 
was  kindly  received  and  entertained  by  an  Indian  ;  who  made  this  strik- 
ing remark,  '■  What  a  God  have  the  English,  who  deal  so  with  one 
another  about  their  God!'  (Sewel's  Quakers,  161.)  To  Wenlock 
Christison,;^who  was  sentenced  to  be  hung,  but  spared  because  they  were 
afraid  of  an  "  in  terrorem"  mandamus  of  Charles  II.,  which  soon  after 
arrived,  Endicott  said  in  open  court, '  Unless  you  will  renounce  your  reli- 
gion, you  shall  surely  die.'  (Sewel,  278.)  Where  are  the  passages  in 
Laud's  life  to  surpass  these  ] 

*  The  Long  Parliament  met,  Nov.  3,  1640,  and  was  forcibly  dissolved  by  Crom- 
well, April,  20,  1653.  I  think  twelve  years  a  fair  estimate,  for  the  sovereignty  oT 
Puritanism  over  Episcopacy,  Presbyterianism,  &c. 


NOTES. 

NOTE  51,  p.  72. 

To  the  complaints  and  attacks  of  the  Puritans,  Abp.  Abbot's  reply 
was,  "  Yield,  and  ihcy  will  be  pleased  at  last:"  Abp.  Laud's,  "  Re- 
Bolve,  for  there  is  no  end  of  yielding."  (Le  Bas's  Laud,  p.  170.)  And 
now,  as  to  which  policy  was  the  more  correct,  let  the  following  testimony 
speak :  "  That  the  spirit  of  contentiousness  did  enter  largely  into  the 
dispute,  is  manifest  from  the  whole  of  its  subsequent  history.  The  Puri- 
tans could  plead  loudly  for  toleration,  when  they  were  comparatively 
weak  ;  but  after  they  had  gained  strength,  they  denounced  all  toleration, 
as  nothing  but  an  artifice  used  to  preserv-e  and  protect  the  fragments  of 
the  Babylonish  superstition."  (Le  Bas's  Jewel,  p.  170.)  John  Cotton's 
conduct  in  Old  England  and  New  England  is  a  striking  confirmation  of 
this  remark.     (See  Eliot's  Biog.  Diet.  p.  136.) 

NOTE  52,  p.  72. 

This  is  the  man,  who,  when  a  hapless  Quaker  was  beaten,  till  "  his 
body  turned  cold,"  and  "  there  seemed,  as  it  were,  a  struggle  between  life 
and  death,"  could  gloat  over  the  sight,  and  say,  "  W.  Brend  endeavored 
to  beat  our  Gospel  Ordinances  black  and  blue  ;  if  he  then  be  beaten  black 
and  blue,  it  is  but  just  upon  him,  and  I  will  appear  upon  his  behalf  that 
did  so."  He  said  this  when  the  good  feelings  of  some  revolted  at  the 
awful  scourging,  and  would  have  had  the  executioner  himself  punished. 
Norton  interposed,  and  became  his  advocate  !  Well  does  Sewel  add, 
"  It  is  therefore  not  much  to  be  wondered  at,  that  these  precise  and 
bigoted  rulers,  who  would  be  looked  upon  to  be  eminent  for  piety,  were 
so  cruel  in  persecuting  ;  since  their  Chief  Teacher  thus  wickedly  en- 
couraged them  to  it."     (Sewel,  195,  196.) 

As  to  the  sentiment  here  advanced  by  Norton,  there  is  no  doubt  of 
the  industry  with  which  he  and  a  multitude  of  others  have  endeavored  to 
spread  and  perpetuate  the  idea,  that  religion,  and  religion  only,  was  con- 
cerned in  the  settlement  of  New  England.  But  the  very  attempt  to 
ward  off  the  imputation,  that  "  trade"  was  concerned  in  it,  shows  where 
the  shoe  pinched.  And  we  find,  now  and  then,  one  more  accurate,  or 
more  candid  than  the  rest,  making  admissions  which  subtract  not  a  Uttle 
from  such  broad  assertions  as  Norton's.  Dudley's  involuntary  exposure 
we  have  seen  ;  and  also  Mr.  Young's  narrowing  the  title  of  Pilgrim 
to  the  settlers  at  Plymouth.  Cotton  Mather  has  done  a  similar  thing. 
In  an  effort  to  decry  the  settlers  east  of  Boston,  he  tells  a  tale  which 
shows  that  there  were  some  more  honest  out  of  Puritan  pulpits,  than  in 
them.  "  There  have  been  some  fine  settlements  in  the  north-east  regions, 
but  what  has  become  of  them  ?     I  have  heard  that  one  of  our  ministers, 


NOTES.  463 

once  preaching  to  a  congregation  there,  urged  them  to  approve  themselves 
a  religious  people  from  this  consideration,  that  otherwise  they  would  con- 
tradict the  main  end  of  planting  this  wilderness.  Whereupon  a  well- 
known  person,  then  in  the  assembly,  cried  out, '  Sir,  you  are  mistaken, 
you  think  you  are  preaching  to  the  people  at  the  Bay  :  our  main  end  was 
to  catch  fish.' "  (Magnalia,  i.  62.)*  I  would  not  repeat  it,  but  that  ex- 
perience teaches  me  its  necessity ;  it  must  never  be  forgotten,  that  the 
main  end  by  the  Charter  was  to  convert  the  Indians !  It  would  seem  as 
if  the  English  government  had  learned  something  of  Puritan  rhetoric 
and  logic,  for  in  the  Connecticut  Charter,  (a  striking  change  and  addition,) 
that  conversion  is  said  to  be  the  principal  and  only  end !  Jesuitical  per- 
versions required  the  utmost  precision.  (See  Acts  and  Laws  of  Connec- 
ticut, The  Charter,  p.  6,  New  London,  1769.) 

NOTE  53,  p.  77. 

How  different  the  principle  with  which  Episcopal  Virginia  commenced 
her  career,  viz.  "  imiversal  suffrage  and  equality."  (Burk's  Virginia,  i. 
302.)  Mr.  Bancroft  is  candid  enough  to  mention  this,  in  the  Jirst  edition 
of  his  United  States,  (vol.  i.  390  ;)  but  his  memory  failed  him,  (profound 
democrat  though  he  be,)  when  he  reached  the  seventh — perhaps  sooner, 
but  I  have  no  intermediate  edition.  (See  vol.i.  360,  seventh  edit.)  Ad- 
mirable indeed  !  And  this  is  the  man  who,  in  one  breath,  can  boast  of 
his  own  extensive  researches :  and  then,  with  another,  blast  a  whole 
batch  of  his  fellow-historians  as  "  not  trustworthy  !  "  (Bancroft's  U.  States, 
1.  300,  note.)  I  dare  not  say,  with  Milton,  about  the  bishops,  God 
grant  such  historians  a  shameful  end  ;  but  I  will  say.  May  he  teach  them 
better  to  unlearn  their  want  of  charity. 

The  fact  mentioned  in  this  note  should  be  carefully  remembered, 
when  the  praises  of  the  Puritans  are  chanted  as  the  founders  of  civil 
liberty.  The  Puritans  of  Massachusetts  began  with  a  narrower  principle 
than  that  of  England,  in  her  most  Laudean  days !  Belknap  is  candid 
enough  to  mention  this  ;  and,  unlike  other  historians,  sticks  to  his  text. 
"  They  had  already  proceeded,"  he  says,  "  a  step  farther  than  the  hierar- 
chy had  ever  attempted."  (Farmer's  Belknap, i.  43.)  But  Churchmen 
began  with  "  universal  suffrage  and  equality."  Well  may  Mr.  Burk  say, 
of  the  noble  State  whose  history  he  has  undertaken, "  Whilst  all  the  great 
nations  of  Europe  were  sunk  in  slavery,  and  England  herself  was  engaged 
in  an  incessant  struggle  with  her  monarch,  in  defence  of  a  few  undefined 

*  This  subject  of  fish-catching  was  not  forgotten  by  the  ministers  in  Massachu- 
setts ;  for  there  we  find  Hugh  Peters,  e.  g.  making  a  circuit,  "  to  excite  a  spirit  of 
enterprise  in  the  fishery."    Felt's  Salem,  p.  94. 


404  NOTES. 

and  scanty  privileges,  Virginia,  separated  as  it  were  from  the  whole  world, 
heard  the  voice  of  liberty  like  sweet  music  vibrate  in  her  wilds."  (Burk's 
Va.  i.  303,304.) 

I  must  add,  that  there  is  another  sad  self-mutilation  committed  by 
Mr.  Bancroft,  in  the  same  paragraph  where  we  have  now  detected  his 
pruning-hook,  which  must  be  noticed  hereafter. 

NOTE  54,  p.  78. 
Mr.  Bancroft  admits  Laud's  honesty,  (United  States,  i.  454  ;)  and 
says,  on  page  407,  that  "  It  is  not  strange,"  he  and  his  associates  should 
have  esteemed  "  the  inhabitants  of  Massachusetts"  men  "  of  refractory 
humors,"  who  consented  in  nothing  "  but  hostility  to  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land ;"  and  also  in  "  designs  to  shake  off  the  royal  jurisdiction."  Indeed  ! 
and  was  it  less  strange,  then,  that  they  should  think  they  were  surround- 
ed by  similar  individuals,  at  home  ?  Was  it  at  all  strange,  that  they 
should  think  Puritanism  just  as  refractory  and  conspiring  in  Old  Eng- 
land as  in  New  1  Mr.  Bancroft  of  course  deems  Laud  a  bigot :  it  is 
a  great  stride  in  him,  however,  towards  candor,  to  catch  a  glimpse  of 
his  honesty.  For  even  so  much  as  that  I  give  him  no  "  faint  praise  ;"  and 
I  respectfully  beg  Episcopalians  to  see  just  as  much  of  honesty  in  Boston, 
as  he  sees  in  Lambeth. 

NOTE  55,  p.  78. 

The  ingenuity  of  Ap.  Laud's  tormentors  almost  surpasses  conception. 
A  proposition  was  actually  introduced  into  the  House  of  Commons,  May 
1,  1643,  that  he  should  be  transported  to  New  England,  unheard  and 
untried,  and  left  to  be  fretted  to  death  by  sectaries  ;  w^ho  would  gladly 
have  seen  him  tortured  out  of  existence  by  the  slowest,  if  surest,  of  con- 
trivable  miseries.  True,  this  "  monstrous  proposal "  was  concocted  by 
Hugh  Peters,  whom  Oldmixon,  his  friend,  admits  "  would  be  whimsical," 
(Brit.  America,  i.  85,)*  and  who  might  have  been  thinking  of  the  pro- 
verb, Felis  in  Tartaro  sine  unguibus.  But  it  shows  the  spirit  of  the 
times,  that  the  project  could  be  entertained  and  debated.  (Le  Bas's 
Laud,  p.  300.) 

And  it  shows  the  spirit  of  Puritan  historians,  that  Mr.  Felt  can  de- 
scribe Peters's  effort  as  an  act  of  mercy  to  the  poor  harassed  archbishop 
(Felt's  Salem,  p.  136.)     Mercy  1     I  would  commend  to  Mr.  Felt  the  lan- 
guage of  Edmund   Burke  :  "  I  vow  to  God,  I  would  sooner  bring  myself 
to  put  a  man  to  immediate  death  for  opinions  I  disliked,  and  so  to  get  rid 

*  One  of  his  nine  gifts  was  "  convenient  boldness."    Phcuix  Britannicus,  p.  257. 


NOTES.  465 

of  the  man  and  his  opinions  at  once,  than  to  fret  him  with  a  feverish  being, 
tainted  with  the  jail-distemper  of  contagious  servitude."  (Burke's  Wks. 
Boston,  1839,  ii.  258.)  Moreover,  as  a  testimony  of  his  affection  for 
Laud's  person,  ParUamcnt,  after  his  execution,  granted  his  library  to 
Peters  !  This  library,  Mr.  Felt  says,  Peters  designed  to  send,  where  he 
had  intended  to  send  its  owner.  But  some  how  or  other  it  never  got  over 
here.     Still  this  is  a  sweet  proof  of  his  affection  for  New  England  ! 

After  such  exhibitions,  in  such  historians  as  Bancroft  and  Felt,  it  ill 
becomes  Puritans  to  complain  that  a  Churchman's  spectacles  will  not 
allow  him  to  see  clearly  through  all  the  turns  and  twists  of  Puritan 
annals. 

While  upon  a  fact  in  Laud's  life,  I  hope  to  be  excused  for  alluding  to 
two  or  three  more ;  so  industriously  and  systematically  has  his  ill-starred 
name  been  a  subject  for  Puritan  calumniation. 

In  Eliot's  Diet.  p.  293,  and  in  the  Mass.  Hist.  Coll,  2d  ser.  i.  167,  he 
is  traduced  for  excessive  cruelty  to  a  Mr.  Lathrop,  a  Puritan  minister. 
Whereas,  even  Secretary  Morton  admits  that  Laud  treated  him  with  won- 
derful consideration  ;  and  that  it  was  he,  and  not  the  king,  as  Eliot  and 
the  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  say,  who  granted  him  liberty.  (Davis's  Morton, 
pp.  257,  258.) 

Laud  is  universally  denounced  as  a  secret  Papist  by  Puritan  writers. 
Yet  the  Protesant  Rapin  acknowledges,  there  is  not  "  the  least  proba- 
bility "  that  either  the  king  or  the  archbishop  ever  formed  the  design  of 
restoring  the  Romish  rehgion.  (Rapin's  Hist.  Tindal's  Edit.  ii.  290  ;  or 
viii.  526,  527,*  Compare  Masere's  Tracts,  pp.  146,  515.)  Rapin  was 
a  Protestant  of  Huguenot  descent ;  and  such  Protestants  have  never  had 
those  bitter  prejudices  against  Episcopacy,  &c,  which  have  been  the  mono- 
mania of  the  Puritans.  See  Bingham's  Apology  of  the  French  Church, 
in  vol.  ix.  of  his  Works. t 

Laud  is  universally  denounced,  too,  as  one  of  the  lowest  of  Arminians, 
and  a  hater  of  all  Calvinists.  Nevertheless,  says  Anthony  Wood,  Bishop 
Barnabas  Potter,  "  though  a  thorough-paced  Calvinist,  was  made  Bishop 
of  Carlisle  by  the  endeavors  of  Bishop  Laud."     (Oxonienses,  ii.  12,  edit. 

*  The  note  Rapin  gives  from  the  Complete  History  of  England  is  another  val- 
uable authority.  "  Laud  would  never  bring  his  neck  under  the  obedience  of  the 
Roman  yoke,  though  he  might  stick  for  the  grandeur  of  the  clergy."— This  testimo- 
ny is  from  any  hand  but  a  partial  one. 

f  Even  Berington,  the  zealous  Papist  who  writes  Panzani's  Memoirs,  admits  that 
Laud  was  no  Papist  ;  and  what  is  better,  explains  why  and  how,  he  was  thought  to 
be  one.  The  cause  of  all  the  clamor  against  Laud,  he  says,  was  his  opposition  to 
Puritanism.     This  is  exact  truth,  say  it  who  may.— Panzani's  Memoirs,  p.  139,  note. 


466  NOTES. 

1721.  Baker's  Chronicle,  p.  463,  edit.  1670.)  And  Wood,  the  Hon. 
Mr.  Savage  calls  "  honest,"  even  when  he  undertakes  to  correct  a  mistake 
in  him.  Not,  be  it  understood  of  my  present  fact,  but  of  what  all  may 
mistake  about — a  matter  of  pedigree.     (Sav.  Wint.  ii.  240,  note  3.)* 

To  show  still  further  the  friendly  terms  on  which  Laud  was  with  Cal 
vinists,  less  hot-headed  and  revolutionary  than  the  Puritans,  I  refer  to  the 
Presbyterian  Mr.  Baillie.  In  vol.  i.  189-194  of  his  Letters  and  Journals, 
edit.  1775,  there  is  given  a  correspondence  of  the  most  free  and  respectful 
kind,  between  Laud  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Calvinists  of  Zurich,  &c., 
on  the  other,  about  the  troubles  in  England,  in  1639.  They  sign  them- 
selves his  "  most  respective  servants ;"  and  he  begins  his  reply  thus,  •*  My 
most  beloved  fellow-brethren,  and  most  learned  Pastors  and  Professors, 
of  the  Churches  and  Universities  of  Zurich,  Bern,"  &cc. 

And  now,  really,  after  giving  this,  and  noting  some  ominous  words  in 
small  capitals,  instead  of  being  afraid  that  Laud  will  be  accounted  a  High- 
Churchman  and  an  Arminian,  my  only  fear  is  that  some  will  call  him  a 
Low-Churchman  and  a  secret  Calvinist ! ! 

NOTE  56,  p.  78. 

This  great  book  of  Laud's  is  not  at  all  known,  out  of  the  Church,  and 
not  as  well  known  there,  as  it  should  be.  It  is  unfortunately  too  much 
like  himself,  who  always  cared  more  for  facts  than  appearances.  If  its 
rhetoric  and  arrangement  were  more  inviting,  it  would  be  as  popular  as 
it  is  thorough.  Take  it,  however,  as  we  find  it,  and  when  any  of  his 
calumniators  can  produce  a  book  half  as  full  of  able  matter  against  Popery, 
they  may  call  him  Papist  with  some  small  plausibility,  if  they  can.  It  is 
an  easy  thing  to  decry  Robin  Hood,  without  being  able  to  shoot  in  his 
bow.  It  is  easy  to  call  a  man  a  Papist,  who  has  done  Popery  more 
mischief  than  his  defamers  can  do  in  a  century. 

To  show  how  the  Archbishop's  book  was  esteemed  by  both  friend  and 
foe,  in  his  own  times,  I  give  the  following  references.  •'  And  so  long  as 
that  incomparable  piece  of  his  against  Fisher  continues  in  the  world,  it 
will  be  an  eternal  monument  of  his  learning,  piety,  and  firmness  in  the 
Protestant  doctrine."  (Nalson's  Countermine,  210,  4th  edit.  London. 
1684.  Brit.  Critic,  xv.  73.)  Sir  Edward  Dering,  who  could  say  very 
hard  things  of  Laud  in  Parliament,  yet  bears  this  unequivocal  and  noble 
testimony  to  his  controversial  volume:  "  His  book  lately  set  forth,  espe- 
cially for  the  latter  half  thereof,  hath  muzzled  the  Jesuit,  and  shall  strike 

*  To  show  further  Laud's  disfavor  towards  Arminians,  he  opposed  the  admission 
of  Grotius  into  England.    Charles  Butler's  Life  of  Grotius,  p.  135 


A 


NOTES.  467 

the  Papist  under  the  fifth  rib,  when  he  is  dead  and  gone."  (Harris's 
Charles  I.,  207.  Compare  Rushworth's  Coll.  iii.,  p.  1326.  Hallam's 
Introd.  to  Lit.  iii.  30,  31.  Wellwood's  Memoirs,  p.  61,  ed.  1700.)  And 
still  the  man,  who,  being  dead,  yet  speaketh  against  Popery  more  em- 
phatically than  a  myriad  of  his  enemies,  was  a  Papist  himself !  (Compare 
Laud's  Troubles,  p.  616.) 

O  judgment,  thou  art  fled  to  brutish  beasts, 
And  men  have  lost  their  reason  ! 

NOTE  57,  p.  79. 

Mr.  Francis  quotes  with  vast  complacency  the  infidel  Hume,  to  prove 
that  the  Puritans  were  the  virtual  authors  of  "  the  whole  freedom"  of  the 
English  constitution.  (Hume,  v.  134.)  How  he  can  reconcile  such  proof 
of  their  authorship,  of  all  the  freedom  of  England,  with  the  proof,  from 
the  same  authority,  that  they  intended  this  freedom  for  themselves  alone, 
and  openly  taught  (Hume,  v.  172)  that  '•  no  others  ought  to  be  tolerated," 
I  know  not.  Perhaps  this  is  one  of  the  mysteries  of  consistency,  in 
which  Mr.  F.  is  able  to  beHeve  ;  while  he  vehemently  rejects  those  of 
the  infinite  Godhead. 

The  claim  set  up  by  Mr.  Francis,  on  the  authority  of  Hume,  is  re- 
iterated with  high  satisfaction  by  Dr.  Hawes,  (Tribute,  p.  57,  2d  ed.,) 
and  by  similar  writers.  But  the  other  side  must  be  heard,  as  well  as 
they.  Against  Mr.  F.  and  Dr.  H.,  I  can  easily  set  off  such  writers  as 
Miller  and  Lathbury.  "  Though,"  says  the  first,  "  as  will  hereafter  be 
shown,  the  struggles  occasioned  by  the  efforts  of  the  Puritans  did  essen- 
tially contribute  to  the  development  of  the  principles  of  freedom,  it  is  by 
no  means  true,  as  the  historian  [Hume]  has  stated,  that  the  English  owe 
to  this  sect  the  whole  freedom  of  their  government."  (Miller's  Phil,  of 
Hist.  iii.  327.)  This  is  from  one  who  is  disposed  to  take  the  most 
favorable  view  of  their  case.  Mr.  Lathbury  is  vastly  less  complaisant ; 
but  he  indulges  in  no  random  allegations.  His  appeal  is  to  stubborn 
fact?. — "  The  revolution,  however,  was  effected  by  Churchmen,  and 
Churchmen  were  the  framers  of  the  Act  of  Toleration.  The  assertion 
that  the  tree  of  religious  liberty  was  planted  and  watered  by  the  Puri- 
tans, is  entirely  destitute  of  foundation.  Had  they  advocated  toleration, 
the  assertion  would  have  been  correct.  They  did  not  contend  for  hberty 
to  all,  but  for  the  establishment  of  their  own  disciphne."  (Lathbury's 
Eng.  Episcopacy,  p.  62.) 

NOTE  58,  p.  79. 
The  precincts  of  the  Massachusetts  Charter  were  vastly  narrower 
than  multitudes  suppose.     Massachusetts  Bay,  according  to  the  Charter, 


468  NOTES. 

was  what  is  now  called  Boston  Bay  ;  for  the  Charles  River  is  described  as 
being  in  the  bottom  of  it.  Now,  the  chartered  territory  lay  between 
three  miles  nonh  of  the  Merrimack,  and  three  mile?  south  of  Boston 
Bay,  and  the  course  of  the  Charles  River.  As  to  the  bearing  of  the 
Charter  upon  the  interior,  between  these  points,  it  is  difficult  to  deter- 
mine it ;  since  the  boundary  there  was  an  imagined  "  south  sea,"  sur- 
rounding New  England,  and  making  it  an  Island* — hence  the  name  after 
the  Island  across  the  ocean.  Praciically,  the  Charter  gave  Massachu- 
setts jurisdiction  over  what  is  now  called  Es?ex  county  and  Middlesex 
county.  Yet  the  Governor,  &,c.,  easily  made  their  power  stretch  so  as 
to  reach  Rhode  Island  I  The  Plymouth  colony  might  have  claimed  the 
northern  part  of  Rhode  Island,  with  vastly  better  grace  ;  but  Massachu- 
setts was  notorious  for  what  an  early  settler  called  its  "  engrasping"  pro- 
pensities. It  swallowed  up  Plymouth,  and  brought  Maine  under  its 
ban.t  Connecticut  was  exceedingly  shy  of  it,  so  far  back  as  A.  D.  1638, 
(Savage's  Winthrop  i.  284  ;)  and  may  perhaps  congratulate  herself  on  an 
escape  from  a  long  and  encircling  arm.  All  this  illustrates  the  ceaseless 
ambition  for  soil  and  revenue,  which  hovered  around  Boston  Bay.  As 
Papal  Rome  claims  to  be  the  Mother  and  Mistress  of  Churches,  so  Puri- 
tan Massachusetts  aspired  to  be  the  Mother  and  Mistress  of  Colonies. 
And  why  ?  Because,  doubtless,  she  was  as  sincere  in  her  beUef  as  Rome 
is,  that  her  rule  only  in  Church  and  State  could  set  the  world  right,  and 
keep  its  foundations  from  getting  "  out  of  course."  But  all  this  tallies 
strangely  with  the  theory,  that  all  the  Puritans  wanted  here  was,  to  be 
"  allowed  to  worship  their  Creator  according  to  the  dictates  of  their 
consciences,  without  molestation." 

NOTE  59,  p.  86. 
It  is  remarkable  that  the  Pelagians,  &.C.,  of  President  Clap's  day, 
ninety  years  since,  made  the  same  complaint  of  Congregationalism,  which 
the  quasi  Pelagians  of  Connecticut  make  of  the  Church  of  England  now. 
"  So  that  according  to  these  new  reformers,  the  present  most  perfect 
reformation  of  Protestants  contains  the  roots  and  lit e  of  Popery ;  and 
all  our  pretensions  to  it  are  but  in  vain,  till  we  root  out  some  of  the  main 
articles  of  our  religion.'' — Pres.  Clap's  own  italics.  Discourse,  &c.  p.34. 
Development  had  not  reached  such  a  crisis  in  Clap's  day,  as  it  has  since. 

*  Neal's  N.  Enj  i.  21. — "  A  parliumentary  speaker,  in  1774,  speaks  of  the  island 
of  New  England."     Eliot's  Biog.  Diet    p.  143,  note. 

f  For  the  beginning  of  the  Massachusetts  warfare  upon  Maine,  see  Williamson's 
Maine,  i.  333,  331,  <k.c.  Massachusetts  was  shy  enough  of  Maine,  wh^n  Episcopal 
influence  prevailed  there.     Pp.  293,297. 


NOTES.  469 

What  would  he  now  Bay  to  see  Congregational  Connecticnt  absolutely 
split  into  two  parties,  with  two  theological  schools  arrayed  against  each 
other ! 

NOTE  60,  p.  87. 
Episcopalians  may  afford  to  bear  this  better,  when  I  assure  them  the 
Methodists,  (than  whom  none  profess  a  greater  horror  of  Popery,) 
ought  to  grant  tKem  sympathy.  For,  this  accusation  of  Popery  has 
reached  and  attainted  John  Wesley  himself !  In  this  country,  Wesley 
was  denounced  as  a  Papist,  because  he,  like  a  true  Puseyite,  mixed  wine 
with  the  water  at  Communions,  and  denied  the  validity  of  non-Episcopal 
baptisms.*  An  account  of  these  and  other  popish  tendencies  in  Wesley, 
and  the  noise  they  made  in  Georgia,  when  Wesley  was  on  his  mission 
there,  may  be  seen  in  Tailfer's,  Sec,  Georgia,  p.  42.  It  has  no  date,  but 
Rich,  in  his  Bibliotheca,  thinks  it  was  printed  at  London  in  1741.  (Rich's 
Biblioth.  ii.  64.) 

NOTE  61,  p.  88. 
They  could  call  the  Church  of  Rome  an  anti-christian  one,  and  say 
that  the  Church  of  England  was  never  a  true  Church ;  (Gangraena,  Pt.  I. 
p.  25  ;)  yet  when  a  bold  Baptist  said  the  same  of  themselves,  they  whipped 
him  soundly,  and  would  have  fined  him  into  the  bargain,  but  he  was  too 
poor!  (Savage's  Wint.  ii.  174,  175.)  Fortunate  man!  poverty  was  a 
mercy  to  him.  However,  there  is  a  word  more  to  be  added :  they  did 
not  whip  him  "  for  his  opinion,"  says  the  journalist,  with  exquisite  cool- 
ness. And  he  adds,  moreover,  an  incidental  proof  of  the  "  vinda  virtus" 
with  which  the  flagellation  was  administered  :  "  He  endured  his  punish- 
ment with  much  obstinacy."  Alas,  poor  Baptist !  it  would  have  been 
hard  enough  to  mangle  thy  wretched  body  only.  To  scourge  thy  memory 
forever,  seems  too  much  like  imitating  those  annual  execrations  which 
His  Holiness  of  Rome  dispenses  for  the  admiration  of  the  faithiiil. 

NOTE  62,  p.  89. 
What  a  marvellous  contrast,  by  the  way,  between  the  conduct  of  these 
outcast  Papists  of  Maryland  and  the  Puritans  of  New  England,  upon  the 
grand  subject  of  religious  liberty !  Papists  could  tolerate  :  Puritans  could 
not.  The  "fault  of  the  age"  was  to  persecute,  and  the  Puritans  could 
not  avoid  falling  in  with  and  imitating  it.     But  Papists  could  rise  above 

*  This  was  not  the  first,  nor  the  twentieth  time,  Wesley  was  accused  of  Popery. 
Even  the  meek  and  quiet  Moravians  accused  him  of  it.  Larington's  Eathasiasm  of 
Papists  and  Methodists  compared,  Pt.  ii.  179.  ed.  1749. 


470  NOTES. 

this  seducing  example,  and  show  themselves  gracious  to  heretics.  Not 
so  the  Puritans.  While  Lord  Baltimore's  followers  in  Maryland  were 
opening  their  doors  to  shelter  all  who  bore  the  Christian  name,  the  Puri- 
tans in  New  England  were  shedding  Christian  blood  for  crimes  against 
their  religion.  Never  more,  then,  be  it  said,  that  the  fault  of  the  age,  or 
the  prevailing  character  of  the  times,  can  excuse  them  ;  or,  if  it  be,  let  it 
be  remembered  that  American  Papists  ask  for  no  such  excuse,  and  that 
if  the  excuse  be  good,  European  Papists  may  justly  plead  it ;  and  thus,  by 
Puritan  logic,  defend  all  the  enormities  of  the  Inquisition.  So  here,  again, 
is  another  of  those  points  of  proximity  which  meet  us  at  every  corner,  be- 
tween those  who  follow  the  Pope,  properly  so  called,  and  those  who  make 
a  Pope  of  their  own  private  judgment,  and  say  magisterially  to  others, 
"  Bow  down,  that  we  may  go  over."     (Isa.  li.  23.)* 

There  is  something  more  curious  still,  in  the  history  of  this  Papal  set- 
tlement in  Maryland,  of  which  the  Puritans  in  England  had  been  the  vir- 
tual and  compulsory  causes.  It  was  not  enough  for  these  exiled  Papists 
to  found  a  government,  under  which,  says  Mr.  Bancroft,  "  religious  lib- 
erty obtained  a  home — its  only  home  in  the  wide  world."  (Bancroft,  i. 
247.)  As  the  author  just  quoted  shows,  they  tendered  all  that  home's 
comforts,  privileges,  and  opportunities,  with  the  largest  liberty,  to  the  Pu- 
ritans themselves ! !  "  Ever  intent  on  advancing  the  interests  of  his  colony. 
Lord  Baltimore  invited  the  Puritans  of  Massachusetts  to  emigrate  to  Ma- 
ryland, offering  them  lands  and  privileges,  and  '  free  liberty  of  religion.'  " 
(Bancroft,  i.  253.  Savage's  Winthrop,ii.  148,149.  Trumbull's  U.  States, 
p.  95.)  Was  there  ever  a  stranger  spectacle,  in  the  history  of  religious 
antipathies  1  Was  good  ever  more  emphatically  returned  for  evil  ]  This 
was  in  1642  ;  and  yet,  in  the  latest  charter  the  Puritans  ever  obtained, 
(in  1691,)  the  only  feature  tolerable  to  them  was  its  intolerance  to  Roman 
Catholics.  Oh,  Puritanism  !  I  love  Rome  as  little  as  you  profess  to  love 
her  ;  and  yet  I  must  say,  here  is  Rome  herself  putting  you  to  the  blush, 
and  heaping  coals  of  fire  upon  your  head  ! 

And  most  wonderful !  the  height  of  the  contrast  between  the  Papists 
of  Maryland,  and  the  Puritans  of  New  England,  is  not  reached  still.  In 
the  brief  period  of  twelve  years,  power  in  Maryland  changed  hands.  In 
consequence  of  the  Revolution  at  home,  the  Puritans  became  ascendant 
there,  in  1654.  And  how,  now  in  turn,  did  they  treat  those  friendly  Pa- 
pists who  would  have  proved  their  benefactors  ?  To  answer  this  question 
in  their  own  favorite  way, "  Yet  did  not  the  chief  butler  remember  Joseph, 
but  forgat  him."     They  forgot  every  thing,  but  that  "  might  gives  right." 

*  No  wonder  that  from  their  imitations  of  Judaism,  old  Howell  calls  the  Puritans 
"  Jews  of  the  New  Testament."— Letters,  Book  iv.  Lett.  43. 


NOTES.  471 

Even  Mr.  Bancroft  does  not  hesitate  to  half  scourge  them  thus :  "  The 
Puritans,  ever  the  friends  of  popular  liberty,  hostile  to  monarchy,  and 
equally  so  to  a  hereditary  proprietary,  contended  earnestly  for  every  civil 
liberty  ;  but  had  neither  the  gratitude  to  respect  the  rights  of  the  govern- 
ment by  which  they  had  been  received  and  fostered,  nor  magnanimity  to 
continue  the  toleration  to  which  alone  they  were  indebted  for  their  resi- 
dence in  the  colony."  (Bancroft,  i.  261.)  How  Mr.  Bancroft  can  praise 
them  as  the  friends  of  liberty,  with  one  breath,  and  with  another,  reproach 
them  as  destitute  of  gratitude,  magnanimity,  and  tolerance,  when  com- 
pared with  votaries  of  the  Popedom,  is  a  mystery  which  may  rank 
with  transubstantiation.  It  would  be  hard  to  believe  one's  own  eyes,  if  it 
were  not  proved  by  staring  evidences,  how  reluctantly  some  forego  their 
habits  of  praising  men,  whom  Papists  long  and  long  before  outdid  in  their 
latest  virtues.  But  like  the  decree  of  old,  "  Delenda  est  Carthago,"  the 
decree  of  modern  times,  "  Laudandi  sunt  Puritani,"  has  become  with  mul- 
titudes a  second  nature. 

This  note  is  long,  but  I  cannot  refrain  from  adding,  that  with  a  char- 
acteristic want  of  forbearance,  the  Puritans  in  Maryland  not  only  punished 
Papists,  but  all  others  who  presumed  to  differ  from  themselves.  "  The 
Catholics,"  says  Mr.  Graham, "  were  not  the  only  parties  who  experienced 
the  severity  of  the  new  government.  The  Protestant  Episcopalians  were 
equally  excluded  from  the  protection  of  law ;  and  a  number  of  Quakers, 
having  resorted  soon  after  to  the  province  and  begun  to  preach  against 
judicial  oaths  and  military  pursuits,  were  denounced  by  the  government 
as  heretical  vagabonds,  and  subjected  to  the  punishment  of  flogging  and 
imprisonment."     (N.  America,  ii.  30.) 

NOTE  63,  p.  90. 

It  seems  somewhat  equivocal,  (even  granting  the  claim  assumed,)  to 
bolster  up  the  Puritans  for  their  devotion  to  learning,  when  the  same  ar- 
gument would  answer  a  Papist,  or  a  Saracen,  equally  well.  Edwards  (it 
is  quite  curious)  is  found  commending  the  Papists  for  their  love  of  learn- 
ing, while  he  rebukes  sectaries,  (among  whom  he  classes  the  Puritan 
Independents,)  for  their  want  and  neglect  of  it.  (See  Preface  to  his  Gan- 
graena,  p.  vii.) 

As  to  the  Saracens,  Mr.  Ockley  tells  us  "  that  when  learning  was 
quite  lost  in  these  western  parts,  it  was  restored  by  the  Moors  ;  to  whom 
what  philosophy  was  understood  by  the  Christians  was  owing."  (See 
Ockley's  Saracens,  Pref.  p.  xiv.)  So  that  on  the  score  of  learning,  a 
Saracen  may  hold  his  head  even  higher  than  a  Puritan.  And  as  to  the 
Episcopalians  of  Virginia,  it  was  not  contempt  of  learning  which  retarded 


472  NOTES. 

their  attention  to  the  subject ;  for  in  1G21,  when  the  Puritans  had  hardly 
landed  on  our  shores,  general  education  and  a  college  were  thought  of. 
(Burk's  Virginia,  i.  225,  226.) 

NOTE  64,  p.  91. 

Edwards  in  his  Gangraena,  pt.  i.  p.  48,  says,  "  Julian  was  a  great 
enemy  to  the  learning  of  Christians — used  all  means  to  overthrow  learn- 
ing. So  do  many  sectaries  in  our  time."  On  p.  12,  he  identifies  the 
Puritan  Independents  with  these  sectaries  ;  as  Hetherington  does  in  his 
book,  p.  196. 

Walsh  in  his  Appeal,  says,  p.  67,  "  The  parliamentary  party  in  Eng- 
land ostentatiously  contemned  all  human  learning,  and  were  wholly  indif- 
ferent to  the  object  of  general  education." 

Now  for  a  testimony  as  to  the  state  of  things  in  New  England. 
Cotton  Mather's  Magnalia  was  first  published  in  1702.  At  that  time  he 
thus  confesses : — "  But  a  good  order  has  never  yet  been  provided  among 
us,  that  no  untried  person  shall  set  up  for  a  preacher,  and  run  about  from 
town  to  town,  getting  into  the  too  much  unguarded  pulpits,  and  threat- 
ening our  holy  religion  with  no  little  inconvenience." — Magnalia,  ii.  466. 

Yet  again.  Let  us  hear  President  Chauncey,  in  one  of  his  sermons 
at  Cambridge,  the  day  after  one  of  their  commencements,  and  when  he 
wanted  to  rebuke  the  whole  land,  and  the  best  of  it,  "  There  be  many 
in  the  country  that  account  it  their  happiness  to  live  in  the  waste,  howl- 
ing wilderness,  without  any  ministry  or  schools,  and  means  of  education 
for  their  posterity."  These,  I  suppose,  are  the  backwoodsmen  :  so  let  us 
try  a  more  hopeful  class.  "  Some  little  good  they  apprehend  in  it,"  he 
says  of  them,  "  to  have  a  minister  to  spend  the  Sabbath,  and  to  baptize 
their  children,  and  schools  to  teach  their  children,  and  keep  them  out  of 
harm's  way,  or  teach  them  to  write  and  read  and  cast  accounts  ;  but 
they  despise  the  angels'  bread."  (Magnalia,  i.  429.)  No  doubt  I  shall 
be  told  Dr.  Chauncey  drew  on  his  imagination  somewhat,  and  used  rhe- 
toric freely.  Did  he  do  so,  when  in  his  last  will  and  testament  he  talked 
about  the  hell-bred  superstitions  of  the  Church  of  England  ?  (Magnalia, 
i.  421.) 

Lastly,  indifference  to  learning,  the  "  low  and  languishing  state"  of 
the  college  and  "  other  inferior  schools,"  is  mentioned  as  one  of  the 
deplorable  evils  which  render  a  second  reformation  necessary  for  New 
England.  And  the  authority  confesses,  the  indifference  had  grown  with 
their  growth  :  "  it  is  deeply  to  be  lamented  that  now,  when  we  are  many 
and  more  able,"  &c.  The  case  was  different  "  when  New  England 
was  poor,  and  we  were  but  few." — See  "  Results  of  Three  Synods," 
Boston,  1725,  pp.  116,117. 


NOTES.  4Tg 

NOTE  65,  p.  93. 

As  to  its  love  of  power  in  magistrates,  Puritanism  once  tried  to  found 
a  government  in  Massachusetts,  whose  officers  were  to  hold  a  place  for 
life  !  Messrs.  Winthrop,  Dudley  and  Vane,  were  to  be  the  triumviri  of 
the  new  dynasty.  (Felt's  Salem,  pp.  96,  97.)  But  Mr.  Felt  does  not 
tell  us,  what  Mr.  Emerson  is  candid  enough  to  do,  that  this  project  was 
"  made  manifest  from  the  Scriptures  !"     (Emerson's  First  Ch.  p.  26.) 

"  The  object  of  this  change  in  the  constitution,"  observes  the  more 
candid  Mr.  Savage,  "  I  discover,  not  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  but  in  Cot- 
ton's Epistle  to  Lord  Say."  (Sav.  Wint.  i.  184,  note.)  But  it  mattered 
not.  Cotton's  version  of  Scripture  was  the  Scripture  of  Massachusetts. 
(Hubbard's  N.  Eng.  p.  182.)  And  as  to  the  expertness  of  the  Puritan 
ministers,  in  perverting  Scripture  for  their  own  purposes,  it  was  quite 
equal  to  that  of  the  Romish  Divines,  as  described  by  Erasmus  in  his 
"  Praise  of  Folly"*— another  of  their  many  points  of  similitude  with  Po- 
pery. Indeed,  Erasmus  seems  to  be  picturing  them  prophetically,  when 
he  says,  "  They  can  deal  with  any  text  of  Scripture  as  with  a  nose  of 
wax,  knead  it  into  what  shape  best  suits  their  interest ;  and  whatever 
conclusions  they  have  dogmatically  resolved  upon,  they  would  have  them 
as  irrepealably  ratified  as  Solon's  laws,  and  in  as  great  force  as  the  very 
decrees  of  the  Papal  Chair."  This  is  a  perfect  description  of  both 
the  Puritan-Papist  and  the  Puritan-Protestant. — See  Erasmus  on  Folly, 
London,  1709,  p.  109  ;  and  compare  some  curious  and  amusing  instances, 
on  his  pages  152,  153. 

NOTE  66,  p.  95. 

Puritans  are  not  aware,  that  this  ad  captandum  appeal  to  names, 
numbers,  or  success,  is  one  of  Rome's  favorite  ways  of  settling  the  ques- 
tion in  her  favor.  If  they  were,  they  would  not  use  it.  See  Stavely's 
Romish  Horse-leech,  Epistle  Dedic.  pp.  28,  29. 

One  of  Cardinal  Bellarmine's  notes  of  the  true  Church  is,  the  efficacy 
of  its  doctrines.  But  who  has  not  heard  the  validity  of  Presbyterian  ordi- 
nation defended,  because  of  the  converts  made  by  its  preachers — in  revi- 
vals more  particularly  1  This  is  appealing  to  Bellarmine's  ninth  note  ; 
and  no  doubt  it  would  have  specially  gratified  his  Eminence  to  have  re- 
torted it  upon  the  Puritans.  (Bellarmine's  Notes  refuted.  New  edit. 
1840,  p.  221.) 

NOTE  67,  p.  95. 
Lightfoot  was  thoroughly  satisfied,  by  his  experiments  with  Puritan- 
ism, and  became  a  sounder  Churchman  than  ever.     "  He  was  a  great 


474  NOTES. 

enemy  to  schism  and  faction,  and  uncharitable  separation  from  the 
Church  ;  and  did  use  to  press  communion  both  in  his  sermons  and  ordi- 
nary discourses."*     (Lightfoot's  Works,  Pitman's  edit.  i.  117.) 

Lightfoot  defended  forms  of  prayer,  too,  even  under  a  Puritan  regime  ; 
for  he  preached  in  their  behalf  in  1655 — at  Cambridge  University  also. 
Truly  he  was  a  strange  Puritan!  For  the  sermon,  see  his  Works, 
vi.  417.  • 

NOTE  68,  p.  95. 

Master  Cotton  loved  power  dearly,  when  it  was  in  his  own  hands. 
He  showed  this,  amply,  in  the  two  treatises  alluded  to,  and  in  some 
others.  For  example,  in  a  critique  on  a  work  of  Mr.  Hendon,  who  had 
advocated  toleration,  he  tells  us  who  may  and  who  may  not  have  tender 
consciences,  and  of  course  who  may  and  who  may  not  be  tolerated. 
"  Tender  consciences  and  true  grace  may  meet  in  one  subject ;  and  none 
indeed  are  truly  of  tender  conscience,  but  such  as  are  truly  gracious." 
That  is,  gracious  in  his  eye  ;  and  then  comes  in  the  well-known  Puritan 
prerogative  to  judge  of  every  body's  piety,  just  as  Whitfield  did  of  Ap. 
Tillotson's,  and  to  send  all  who  do  not  suit  its  fancy  straight  to  the  worst 
of  places,  as  Whitfield  did  this  good  man.  (See  Cotton's  tract,  edition 
of  1656,  p.  3,  for  the  quotation.) 

As  to  his  love  of  the  Power  of  the  Keys,  he  transmitted  this  so  fully, 
that  the  day  came  when  there  was  supposed  to  be  a  Presbyterian  con- 
spiracy to  subdue  New  England  under  synods,  &c.  Wise,  in  his 
"  Churches'  Quarrel  Espoused,"  told  its  abettors  that  they  had  outkinged 
all  kings,  outbishoped  all  bishops,  and  outpoped  the  Pope.  (See  his  book, 
p.  80.  Boston,  1772.)  If  he  had  been  near  enough  to  Master  Cotton's 
day,  to  have  whispered  such  wholesome  counsel  in  his  ear,  it  might  have 
been  as  good  as  hellebore  to  thickening  blood. 

Cotton's  prelatical  spirit  was  translated  into  Connecticut.  Thomas 
Hooker,  of  Hartford,  his  cotemporary  in  his  Church  Polity,!  maintains 

♦  From  his  Address,  I  supposed  Dr.  Bacon  ignorant  of  Lightfoot's  return  to  the 
Church.  Yet  in  his  Hist.  Discourses,  p.  35,  he  professes  to  be  aware  of  the  fact,  and 
Btill  persists  in  calling  Lightfoot  a  Puritan.     Would  he  were  such  an  one  himself. 

j;  The  very  loAy  opinion  once  entertained  by  the  Puritans  of  their  Hooker,  is  mani- 
fest from  the  following  language  of  (I  presume)  Mr.  Foxcroft,  of  Boston,  to  Dr.  John- 
son, of  Stratford.  "  If  ho  has  a  Richard  Hooker  to  boast  of,  we  have  a  Thomas  Hooker 
to  match  him.  *  The  Survey  of  Church  Discipline'  wears,  for  aught  I  see,  as  venera- 
ble a  hoary  head  as  the  '  Ecclesiastical  Polity.'  " — See  reply  to  Elcutherius  EnervatuB. 
Boston,  1733,  p.  2. 

It  is  important  for  Churchmen  to  know,  that  a  boqX  of  Puritanic  Connecticut, 
long  since  surrendered  to  oblivion  and  bookworms,  is  the  equal  of  the  immortal  work 


NOTES.  475 

that,  "  the  supreme  magistrate  hath  liberty  and  power  both  to  inquire  and 
judge  of  professions  and  religions,  which  is  true  and  ought  to  be  main- 
tained, which  is  false  and  ought  to  be  rejected."  Again,  "  If  the  magis- 
trate is  bound  to  maintain  the  peace  of  his  subjects  in  godliness,  and  to 
know  and  judge  of  the  ways  of  godliness  ;  then  he  must  have  power  to 
use  such  means  that  he  may  both  know  and  maintain  it."  (T.  Hooker's 
Survey  of  Ch.  Discipline,  pt.  iv.  pp.  57,  58.  London,  1648.)  The  pow 
ers  Hooker  gives  the  magistrate  ought  to  have  made  himself  conform  to  the 
religion  of  Charles  I.  But,  alas,  when  an  Episcopalian  exercised  them 
he  was  a  tyrant ;  because,  doubtless,  he  was  not  "  truly  gracious." 

The  high-churchism  of  Cotton  and  Hooker  went  further  in  Coimec- 
ticut  than  in  Massachusetts :  witness  the  "  consociation"  system,  a  via 
media  between  Presbyterianism  and  Congregationalism  puris  naturali- 
bus.*  It  made  some  lordly  disciples,  as  Mr.  William  Hart's  reply  to  Noah 
Hobart,  about  the  great  Wallingford  case,t  evinces ;  where,  on  p.  45,  he 
complains  of  the  sad  increase  of  what  he  calls  "  Diotrephenism."  Is 
there  any  of  the  old  Diotrephian  spirit  left  ?  Who  are  the  virtual  bishops 
of  Congregational  Connecticut,  i.  e.,  of  its  old  and  new  school  sections? 

I  am  constrained  to  close  this  note  with  another  quotation  from  Mr. 
John  Wise.  "The  very  name  of  an  arbitrary  government  is  ready  to 
put  an  English  man's  blood  [I  follow  copy]  into  a  fermentation,  but  when 
it  really  comes  and  shakes  its  whip  over  their  ears,  and  tells  them  it  is 
their  master,  it  makes  them  stark  mad  ;  and  being  of  a  mimical  genius, 
and  inclined  to  follow  the  court  mode,  they  turn  arbitrary  too." — 
(Churches'  Quarrel  Espoused,  p.  79.)  Mr.  Wise  meant  this  as  an  explan- 
atory theory  for  some  of  his  Puritan  brethren  ;  who,  low-church  in  Eng- 
land, became  high-church  in  Massachusetts.  Verily,  if  high-churchman- 
ship  consists  in  being  arbitrary,  the  world  has  produced  no  higher  church- 
men than  the  Puritans. 

NOTE  69,  p.  106. 

When  I  wrote  the  letters  of  1835, 1  was  assailed  as  a  conspirator,  at- 
tempting to  sow  discords  between  the  Puritans  and  the  Dutch,  and  de- 
fended myself  in  the  following  terms  : 

"  Really,  among  all  my  wildest  imaginings,  I  could  never  have  ex- 

of  the  profound  Episcopalian.  Would  that  I  could  give  extracts  from  Dr.  Johnson'a 
reply  to  Mr.  Foxcroft,  and  to  which  Mr.  F.  never  rejoined.  But  the  book  is  not  io 
my  possession.     It  is  referred  to  in  Chandler's  Johnson,  p.  70. 

*  See  "  Congregational  Order,"  published  at  Middletown,  Connecticut,  1843,  p 
291,  etc. 

t  For  this  case,  seeJTrumbull'B  Connecticut,  ii.  480. 


476  NOTES. 

cogitated  such  a  possibility  ;  for  my  opinion  has  been  (a  stranger's  itmo- 
ranee  is  excusable  if  I  am  incorrect)  that  the  points  of  proximity  between 
the  very  respectable  Dutch  Church  and  our  own  were  much  more  nume- 
rous, than  between  that  Church  and  Puritan  meeting-houses.*  Some 
things  in  the  Intelligencer  and  Churchman  (Dutch  and  Episcopal  Church 
papers)  led  me  to  suppose  so.  And  this  was  any  thing  but  surprising  to 
roe.  I  remembered  how  the  author  of  the  '  European  Settlements/ 
said  '  they  were  watched.*  I  remembered  how  Mr.  Bozman,  one  of  the 
best  of  our  American  historians,  said  *  they  had  not  lived  at  Amsterdam 
more  than  a  year,  before  ambition,  through  which  even  angels  are  said  to 
have  fallen,  set  these  "  holy  brethren  and  exiled  saints"  by  the  ears.'  (Hist, 
of  Maryland,  p.  200.)  I  remembered  how  Chief  Justice  (I  beg  pardon, 
my  hope  '  was  father  to  that  thought')  Story  characterized  their  con- 
summate selfishness  and  alienation  from  all  Christians  of  every  name. 
*  The  truth  of  history  compels  us  to  admit,  that  from  the  first  settlement 
down  to  the  charter  of  William  and  Mary  in  1692,  [1691,]  in  proportion 
as  they  gathered  internal  power,  they  were  less  and  less  disposed  to  share 
it  with  any  other  Christian  sect.'  (Hist.  Disc.  p.  51.)  I  remembered 
how  the  people,  who  doubted  the  sincerity  of  their  King,  and  said  that  a 
charter  with  *  a  seal  as  broad  as  the  house-floor,'  (Hazard,  i.  361,)  would 
be  good  for  nothing ;  also  doubted  the  sincerity  of  their  excellent  Dutch 
friends,  who  allowed  them  '  sweetly  to  enjoy  their  Church  liberty.'  I 
remembered  how  their  writers  (New  England's  Memorial,  e.  g.,  Davis's 
edit.,  pp.  31,  34,)  had  upbraided  the  Dutch  for  bribing!  the  Captain  of  the 

*  I  employ  this  term,  now  growing  rather  obsolete  among  those  who  once  con- 
tended strenaoQsly  for  its  use,  to  remind  my  readers  of  the  past.  I  was  once  present 
at  a  Congregational  parish  meeting  in  Connecticut,  where  a  fierce  dispute  arose 
whether  the  edifice  in  which  they  were  assembled  should  be  called  church  or  meeting- 
house. It  was  voted,  after  much  sharp  and  learned  debate,  that  it  was  a  church.  And 
why  not.'  If  a  vote  can  make  a  minister,  it  were  a  pity  if  it  could  not  make  a  church 
for  him  too.  I  also  use  the  teim  by  the  way  of  counterpart  to  the  gracious  appella- 
tion formerly  given  to  Episcopal  churches  in  this  country,  viz.  "  Church  of  England 
buildings."  (See  Mass.  Hist.  Collect.,  1st  series,  iii.  106)  The  curious  should  read 
the  whole  letter  from  which  I  quote.  The  exertions  of  the  Rev.  3Ir.  Sayre  (Mis- 
sionary at  Fairfield)  ia  behalf  of  our  countrymen,  when  that  place  was  attacked  by 
Gov.  Tryon,  his  earnest  intercessions  for  their  property,  his  fearless  intrepidity  in 
bearing  a  flag,  when  "  the  flames  were  raging  and  bullets  flying,"  and  the  burning 
down  of"  the  Church  of  England  building."  not  by  the  British,  are  worthy  commem- 
oration by  some  one  of  Connecticut's  many  able  Episcopal  pens.  Connecticut  is  a 
rich  field  for  the  annalists  of  our  Church.  May  she  soon  provoke  some  of  her 
worthy  sons  to  traverse  it  faithfully,  and  per  nit  the  now  living  to  enter  into  his 
labors. 

■f  This  story  about  Dutch  bribery  is  at  length  given  up.  Compare  Bancroft's  U 
States,  vol.  i.  333,  first  edition  :  and  vol  i.  309,  seventh  edition.    Young,  in  his  Chron 


NOTES.  477 

Mayflower,  by  'fraudulency  and  contrivance,'  not  to  land  them  near 
their  own  settlements,  but  something  more  than  a  '  sabbath-day's  jour- 
ney' distant :  a  tolerable  proof,  by  the  way,  how  much  the  Dutch  loved 
them,  even  if  the  'allegation,'  as  Mr.  Bozman  calls  it,  be  true.  (Hist. 
Maryland,  209.)  I  remembered  how  they  assaulted  the  Dutch  with  bitter 
charges,  almost  as  soon  as  they  had  established  their  Massachusetts  set- 
tlement, of  '  a  constant  course  of  opposition,  injuries,  and  many  hostile 
affronts.'  (Hazard,  ii.  212.)  I  remembered  how  their  Anabaptist  ex- 
communicates fled  to  the  Dutch  for  shelter.  (Savage's  Winthrop,  ii.  124.) 
And  lastly,  I  remembered  what  tender  admonitions,  in  their  ostensibly 
better  moods,  they  offered  to  their  former  hospitable  entertainers,  or  their 
countrymen,  it  matters  little  which.  Out  of  '  love  and  affection,'  they 
bade  them  beware  how  they  came  too  near  their  precincts.  Why  1  Lest 
the  sea-serpent  swallow  them  down  whole  1  No :  but  lest  '  peradven- 
ture  they  [their  own  seamen]  will  make  prize  of  you  if  they  can.'  (Mass. 
Hist.  Coll.,  1st  series,  iii.  53.)  What  an  apt  illustration  of  the  New  York 
Observer's  commentary  on  th»ir  disposition  to  forget  injuries !  They 
remembered  benefits  so  well,  that  because  the  Dutch  in  Holland  granted 
them  the  greatest  boon  on  earth — a  free  conscience — they,  when  3000 
miles  off,  would  allow  them,  in  return,  (magnanimous  requital !)  to  catch 
— not  a  soUtary  fish  in  their  broad  waters:  waters,  by  the  way,  which  the 
poor  Dutchmen  claimed,  not  by  courtesy,  but  by  right — a  right  which 
they,  who  never  came  here  to  make  money,  felt  in  conscience  bound  to 
dispute.  All  this,  too,  when,  only  a  short  time  after,  they,  with  their 
usual  consistency^  acknowledge  their  obligations  of  gratitude.  (Mass. 
Hist.  Coll.,  1st  series,  iii.  55.)  Everlasting  commemoration  be  the  due 
of  such  profoundly  grateful  recollections  ! 

"  Calling  to  mind  things  like  this  savory  series,  I  never  wondered  that 
the  Dutch  were  willing  to  disburse  a  few  compliments,  in  order  to  get  rid 
of  their  unpromising  visitants.  Doubtless  they  had  a  milder  and  more 
gentlemanly  way  of  removing  disagreeable  associates  than  had  the  Puri- 
tans. Unlike  Endicott  and  his  homogeneous  clan,  concerning  whose 
tender  mercies,  says  Dr.  Bentley,  (Mass.  Hist.  Coll.,  1st  series,  vi.  245,) 
*  ihey  who  could  not  be  terrified  into  silence  were  not  commanded  to 

icles,  repudiates  it.  See  p.  102,  notes.  He  says  Moulton.  in  his  history  of  New  York, 
was  the  first  to  question  it.  This  is  a  loose  remark  j  for  Bozman  in  his  Maryland, 
gave  it  but  aa  a  rumor,  and  with  hesitation  ;  and  even  Robertson,  in  his  America, 
doubts  it.  for  he  gives  it  as  a  saying  of  the  day  merely. — Bozman,  pp.  209,  210,  notes. 
One  thing  however  is  clear,  from  the  string  of  historians  cited  by  Young,  that 
the  Puritans  clung  to  the  tale  about  Dutch  treachery,  as  long  as  they  could.  And 
just  so  long  will  they  cling  to  tales  which  defame  Episcopalians.  No  matter,  how- 
ever, if  their  temper  iu  such  cases  is  but  accurately  understood. 

21* 


478  NOTES. 

withdraw,  but  they  were  seized  and  transported  as  criminals  ;'  unlike 
these,  I  say,  the  Dutch  did  not  kick,  but  bowed  intruders  out  of  doors.  I 
like  the  Dutch,  Mr.  Editor  ;  they  were  largely  liberal,  as  soon  as,  if  not 
sooner  than  any  people  in  Europe  or  the  world ;  their  honesty  (Puritan 
vituperation  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding)  and  their  contentpient  are 
proverbial ;  and  steady  if  they  be  in  adherence  to  their  own  notions,  they 
are  not  remarkable,  as  some  have  been,  and  still  are,  for  languishing  and 
declining  when  not  sustained  by  what  Bozman  happily  calls  '  the  nour- 
ishing dew  of  persecution  ;'  (Hist.  Maryland,  376  ;)  nor  for  neglecting  to 
take  *  heed  of  too  great  straitness  and  singularity,'  in  the  matter  of 
Christian  courtesy,  as  some  have  done  in  spite  of  solemn  warning  from 
'  assured  lovers  and  friends ;'  (Mass.  Hist.  Coll.,  1st  series,  iii.  28  ;) 
nor  as  some  have  been,  and  have  yet  the  will  to  be,  for  notorious  domi- 
neering, dictating,  proscribing,  and  even  worse  things,  and  then  *  sancti- 
fying' the  whole  by  that  convenient,  but  most  profaned  and  prostituted 
word,  '  sincerity.'  Sincerity,  thinks  the  New  York  Observer,  is  an  ex- 
cuse for  saying,  if  not  doing,  any  thing  to  one's  neighbor,  no  matter  how 
ill-timed  or  unacceptable.  Indeed!  Let  me  wonder  if  the  sincerity  of  a 
Papist  would  with  that  journal  be  a  passport  for  a  good  round  Trentine 
anathema,  or  even  exonerate  the  '  bad  style'  of  your  correspondent, 
when  ripping  up  the  well-sewed  secrets  of  a  couple  of  centuries.  Did  the 
sincerity  of  a  late  able  refuter  of  a  traveller's  calumnies  against  the  Church 
of  England,  procure  his  remarks  a  place  in  that  journal's  columns  1  (See 
Churchman  for  January  31,  1835.)  This  unfortunate  Observer,  Mr.  Edi- 
tor, seems  to  be  suffering  as  did  Leah  of  old,  (Gen.  xxix.  17,)  and  to  have 
thrown,  perhaps,  in  consequence,  amazingly  rheumy.  He  denounces  me 
for  want  of  complaisance,  and  then — possibly,  because  troubled  by  his 
eyes,  he  did  not  see  what  a  text  he  was  preaching  from — broadly  insinu- 
ates that  neither  my  Episcopal  brethren  nor  myself  believe  the  standards 
of  our  Church.  If,  Mr.  Editor,  our  clergy  were  to  say,  as  has  been  done 
attain  and  again  of  his  own  standards,  and  under  a  solemn  examination 
before  a  presbytery,  that  they  believed  them  '  only  for  substance,'  doubt- 
less this  would  not  be  enough  for  poor  unworthy  Episcopalians  ;  but  the 
answer  must  be  made  to  them,  as  to  the  brow-beaten  remonstrants  of 
1646,  '  You  are  not  to  enjoy  the  liberty  wherewith  we  are  set  free.'  But, 
after  all,  I  am  not  so  thoroughly  displeased  with  my  critic's  rheum  or 
rheumatism  (as  either  term  may  suit)  as  he  supposes.  I  view  his  spasms 
with  as  much  self-complacency  as  does  a  tired  physician  the  effects  of  a 
medicine,  which  has  at  last  begun  to  do  its  work  on  an  obstinate  con- 
stitution. If,  in  my  self-defending  severity  (just  such  severity  as  Bancroft 
says  (i.  463)  was  used  by  the  Puritans,  and  certainly  just  such  as  was 


NOTES.  479 

used  by  the  very  sincere  William  Laud,)  I  have  made  him  smart  a  little 
let  me  beg  him  to  be  '  patient  in  tribulation,'  for  the  chastisement  may  be 
salutary.  I  commend  to  him,  while  experiencing  rny  prescriptions,  Prov. 
xiii.  24.  Old  Master  Moody,  of  most  famous  pedagogical  memory,  was 
accustomed  to  require  the  uneasy  to  read  the  entire  book  of  Proverbs :  I 
will  only  advise  for  him  a  single  verse." 

NOTE  70,  p.  108. 

Dr.  Dwight  is  bold  enough  to  say,  "  The  creed  of  these  men  [Puri- 
tans] was  in  substance  the  same  with  that  of  your  own  Church  [of  Eng- 
land] and  that  of  the  Protestant  Churches  generally  ;"  (Travels,  i.  165  ;) 
yet  it  is  notorious,  that  their  ideas  about  the  sanctity  of  the  Lord's  day 
have  been  peculiar  to  themselves.  Roger  Williams  told  them,  long  ago, 
what  "  the  famous  Calvin  and  thousands  more  held"  respecting  it.  (Mass. 
Hist.  Coll.,  1st  ser.  i.  281.)  But  Calvin  and  his  thousands  they  followed 
not* 

Nay,  transcending  even  God  himself  in  consecrating  one  day,  they 
consecrated  Saturday  and  Sunday  nights  as  equally  sacred,  and  guarded 
their  observance  by  the  same  penalties !  !  (See  Massachusetts  Law  of 
1692,  or  p.  15,  edit.  1714;  also  Connecticut  Laws,  edit.  1769,  pp.  139, 
140.)  Nay  more,  though  Christmas,  &,c.  had  been  proscribed  by  fine> 
their  own^  Thanksgiving*  and  Fasts  are  fortified  by  the  same  penal- 
ties which  guarded  Sunday.  And  were  these  heavy  1  Why,  Massachu- 
setts, down  to  1726,  and  very  much  later  for  aught  I  know,  would  put  a 
man  in  a  cage  (this  detestable  instrument  of  public  torture  not  yet  ex- 
tinguished) for  absenting  himself  from  Puritan  worship  for  a  month  to- 
gether.    (See  Laws,  edit.  1726,  p.  252.) 

By  the  way,  how  curiously  the  extension  of  holy  time  to  an  additional 
evening  every  week,  and  to  holy-days  of  an  indefinite  number,  compares 
with  the  old  established  Puritan  principle,  "  that  the  Scripture  must  be 
the  rule  to  direct  in  all  things,  even  so  far  as  to  the  '  taking  up  of  a  rush 
or  straw.'  "t  See  proem  to  the  second  book  of  Richard,  not  Thomas, 
Hooker's  Ecc.  Polity. 

*  Some  of  these  thousands  were,  notwithstanding,  quits  favorable  to  the  ob- 
servance of  Christmas,  Easter,  &c.  See  "  Judgment  of  tlie  Reformed  Churches  of 
Holy  Days." — Proceedings  of  the  Assembly  at  Perth  in  Scotland,  Lond.  1621,  Pt.  iii.79, 
etc.  The  Synod  of  Dort  kept  the  Festival  of  the  Nativity  for  three  days.  See  pp. 
84,  85. — Compare  Bingham's  Works,  ix.  251. 

f  When  Master  Cotton  had  to  contend  with  the  Baptists,  and  they  employed  this 
old  Puritan  principle  against  infant  baptism,  he  told  them  the  Devil  helped  them  to 
such  a  notion  !  I — Benedict's  Baptists,  i.  362,  363. 


4g0  NOTES. 

NOTE  71,  p.  112. 
Cushman  rebuked  his  Plymouth  friends  in  1621,  in  the  following 
good  round  terms.  "  Men  may  make  a  great  appearance  of  respect  unto 
God,  and  yet  but  dissemble  with  him,  having  their  own  lusts  carrying 
them  ;  and,  out  of  doubt,  men  that  have  taken  in  hand  hither  to  come, 
out  of  discontentment  in  regard  to  their  estates  in  England,  and  aiming 
at  great  matters  here,  affecting  it  to  be  gentlemen,  landed  men,  or  hoping 
for  office,  place,  dignity,  or  fleshly  liberty."  Could  they  who  landed  for 
conscience'  sake  in  1620,  require  such  preaching  as  this  in  1621  ]  But 
the  fact  speaks  for  itself;  though  I  by  no  means  give  all  Cushman's  plain 
speaking.     (Young's  Chronicles,  p.  263.) 

NOTE  72,  p.  120. 

Hutchinson  says  the  proposal  to  bribe  the  king  was  a  trick  of  Cran- 
field's — a  governor  of  New  Hampshire,  who  owed  Massachusetts  a 
grudge,  for  having  felt  some  of  the  Teachings  of  its  "  engrasping"  arm. 
Be  it  so.  By  Hutchinson's  own  confession,  the  bait  took  ;  for  he  adds, 
*'  The  court,"  i.  e.  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts,  for  Cranfield  was 
at  Boston  when  he  advised  tkem  what  to  do — "  The  court  agreed  to  the 
proposal."  (Hutchinson,  i.  303.)  The  General  Court,  then,  were  nothing 
loth  to  try  bribes  ;  and  that  is  all  that  I  am  concerned  to  show. 

While  upon  this  subject  of  underhand  dealing,  I  must  quote  two 
authorities  more. 

A  letter  of  Shirley,  a  Plymouth  agent,  shows  how  freely  bribes  could 
be  given.  He  says  thus  to  Governor  Bradford  :  "  But  as  Festus  said  to 
Paul,  with  no  small  sum  obtained  I  this  freedom  ;  [i.  e.  of  access  to  the 
ear  of  the  Lord  Keeper  ;]  for,  by  the  way,  there  were  many  riddles  which 
must  be  resolved,  and  many  locks  must  be  opened  with  the  silver,  nay  the 
golden  key."  (Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  ser.  iii.  70.)  These  men,*  like  John 
Cotton,  would  not  bend  the  knee  at  the  Eucharist,  though  but  for  a  solita- 
ry time,  to  gain  the  Church's  favor  ;  (Magnalia,  i.  237  ;)  but  they  could 
bend  conscience  like  a  willow  withe,  at  the  shrine  of  Mammon,  to  pro- 
mote their  worldly  interest. 

And  now  for  my  last  testimony,  on  this  humiliating  subject.  Says  a 
New  England  Review,  "  Old  politicians,  grown  gray  in  practices  of  arti- 
fice and  deception,  could  never  have  discovered  more  simulation  than  our 
General  Court,  in  their  apologies  for  not  joining  the  other  colonies,  when 
Connecticut  was  threatened  with  invasion  by  the  Dutch  at  Manhadoes  ; 
and  which  would  actually  have  taken  place,  had  not  Oliver  Cromwell,  by 

*  "  I  write  here,"  says  Shirley,  "  in  the  behalf  of  aW  our  partners."   P.  71. 


NOTES.  481 

his  threats,  annihilated  all  their  bold  resolutions."     (Monthly  Anthology. 
Boston,  1809,  vii.  63,  64.) 

This  picture  of  Massachusetts,  by  her  own  children,  is  far  more  for- 
midable than  any  of  my  painting.  It  shows,  first,  how  little  the  Puri- 
tans cared  for  the  lives  of  their  own  brethren,  if  they  could  save  their 
own  pockets — next,  that  Oliver  Cromwell  was  their  superior  in  charity — 
and  lastly,  that  Talleyrand  himself  could  not  have  surpassed  them  in  du- 
plicity : — and  all  this  by  a  Massachusetts  pen ! ! 

NOTE  73,  p.  124.  (Last  line  of  the  foot  notes.) 
This  exeedingly  sensitive  spot  in  the  annals  of  Puritanism  was  noticed 
by  the  Presbyterian  Baillie,  in  his  "  Dissuasive  from  the  errors  of  the 
times."  Master  Cotton  in  his  reply  to  him  and  Mr.  Rutherford,  another 
Presbyterian  who  had  assailed  Puritan  Independency,  alias  Congrega- 
tionalism, felt  the  point  of  Mr.  Baillie's  spear  as  acutely  as  Mr.  Young  ; 
who  quotes  Cotton  with  great  eagerness  as  a  Goliath  against  Baillie,  on 
p.  380  of  his  Chronicles.  But  what  is  Cotton's  overwhelming  authority  ? 
Nothing  but  the  simple  assertion  of  the  *'  Pilgrims"  themselves  :  some- 
what interested  witnesses,  as  all  must  grant.  "  Themselves  do  declare 
it,"  (is  Cotton's  annihilating  answer  to  Mr.  Baillie,)  that  you  are  totally 
in  the  wrong.  (Way  of  the  Cong.  Churches  cleared,  &c.,  p.  14.  Lon- 
don. 1648.)  And  then  he  proceeds  to  give,  as  he  himself  doth  declare, 
"  their  own  words  ;"  when  he  cuts  those  words  into  a  shape  that  better 
suited  his  own  fancy — giving,  as  I  have  said,  but  four  reasons  out  of  five, 
and  leaving  out,  among  other  things,  all  allusion  to  their  "  being  desirous 
rather  to  enlarge  his  Majesty's  dominions,  and  to  live  under  their  natural 
Prince."  All  this  is  plain  enough.  Cotton  was  writing  in  the  days  of 
the  Parliament,  when  it  would  have  been  rather  awkward  to  talk  about 
the  loyalty  of  the  "  Pilgrims,"  to  an  authority  they  were  then  full  willing 
to  disown.  So  Cotton  quietly  dodges  that  difficulty,  by  the  slight  sin  of 
omission. 

But  let  such  matters  pass.  Analyzed  thus,  what  is  Cotton's  assertion 
worth  more  than  Baillie's?  Who  will  say  the  ipse  dixit  of  the  Congrega- 
lionalist  is  better  than  that  of  the  Presbyterian  ? 

We  are  then  thrown  back  upon  the  "Pilgrims"  themselves;  and 
their  own  story  has  been  given  by  Secretary  Morton,  and  commented  on 
quite  enough  probably,  any  Puritan  will  without  doubt  say. 

However,  there  are  one  or  two  collateral  matters,  which  may  be  sub- 
joined here. 

It  speaks  not  over  well  for  the  "  Pilgrims,"  that  the  archbishop  would 
not  favor  thera.    (See  Hazard's  Collect,  i.  361.    Young's  Chronicles, 


482  NOTES. 

p.  56.)  Some  will  say,  By  no  means:  this  was  of  course  to  be  expected, 
from  such  a  man  as  Laud.  Laud,  reader?  Why  Laud  was  not  then  so 
much  as  a  plain  bishop.  This  was  in  1618  ;  while  Laud  was  not  a 
bishop  till  1621,  nor  an  archbishop  till  1633.  The  archbishop  in  ques- 
tion was  George  Abbot,  the  Calvinist,  and  the  devoted  patron  of  non- 
conformists, and  opponent  of  the  Book  of  Sports!*  And  he  look  with  a 
cold  eye  upon  our  Leyden  friends  ]  There  is  something  in  this  very 
strange,  and  very  suspicious.  Abbot  knew  Robinson  in  England  ;  for 
he  left  England  just  about  as  Abbot  had  entered  on  his  archiepiscopate. 
He  had  doubtless  read  Bishop  Hall  against  the  Brownists,  alias  Bishop 
Hall  against  John  Robinson  ;  and  he  distrusted  a  man  who,  having 
called  his  ecclesiastical  mother  a  harlot,  now  came  cap  in  hand  to  solicit 
her  smiles. 

Another  thing.  Why  does  Robinson,  in  his  parting  letter  to  the 
"  Pilgrims,"  dwell  so  intently  upon  the  necessity  of  their  peace  with  one 
another  1  Why  warn  them  against  that  "  touchy  humor,"  which  even  to 
this  day  has  lost  none  of  its  testiness  in  their  descendants  ?  Why  tell  them 
that  they,  "  above  others,"  should  be  most  cautious  to  guard  against  it  ? 
I  leave  these  questions  for  my  readers'  own  reflections,  and  add  but  the 
reference  to  the  letter  itself.  (Young's  Chronicles,  pp.  92,  93.  Or,  Mass. 
H.  Coll.  2d  ser.  ix.  30.) 

Perhaps  however  I  ought  to  say,  that  Robinson's  caution  was  zeal- 
ously followed  up  in  1624  by  the  agents  of  Plymouth  in  England.  They 
warn  the  "Pilgrims"  against  "hatred  or  heartburning,"  "long  and 
sharp  disputes."    (Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  ser.  iii.  30.) 

Notwithstanding,  the  version  of  Puritan  perfection  in  Cotton  Mather 
is,  that  "  God  sifted  three  nations,  that  he  might  bring  choice  grain  into 

*  I  do  not  remember  giving  a  Churchman's  apology  for  the  Book  of  Sports.  The 
design  was  to  keep  people  from  going  back  to  Romanism,  in  consequence  of  the  hor- 
rors of  a  Puritan  sabbath  ;  a  breach  of  which  Master  Cotton  would  have  punished 
with  death.  (Hutch.  Collect,  pp.  161, .173.)  It  was  an  error,  doubtless,  but  a  sincere 
one  ;  and  therefore  harmless,  according  to  Puritan  logic,  and  quite  excusable.  Sin- 
cerity, as  we  shall  by  and  by  see,  covers  up  all  defects.  Even  Hutchinson  is  beguil- 
ed into  the  common  cant  about  sincerity.  (Hutch.  Hist.  i.  J75.)  For  an  authority 
on  the  Church  side  about  the  Book  of  Sports,  see  Bp.  Montague's  Articles  of  Enquiry, 
Cambridge  edit.  1641.  pp.  86,  121. — Poor  Bishop  Montague  wrote  against  Popery,  as 
well  as  Archbishop  Laud  ;  but  was  considered  as  a  concealed  Papist  of  the  most 
malignant  kind.  Nevertheless,  on  the  Tery  page  where  he  asks  a  clergyman  if  he 
had  read  the  Book  of  Lawful  Sports,  according  to  the  King's  order,  he  also  asks  a 
question,  whicli  the  ministers  of  Puritanic  Ma.'?sachusetts  could  not  answer  very 
favorably,  with  tee-totalism  in  temperance  to  help  them.  It  is  this.  "Do  any  in 
your  parish  buy  or  sell,  or  keep  open  their  shops,  or  set  out  any  wares  to  be  sold 
on  Suudaya  or  Holy  Days,  by  themselves,  their  servants,  or  apprentices :" 


4 


NOTES.  4g3 

this  wilderness."  (Magnalia,  i.  219.)  Alas,  for  our  degeneracy,  if  the 
siftings  of  three  nations,  by  Heaven's  own  hand,  need  so  much  re-sifting 
from  the  hand  of  man  ! 

NOTE  74,  p.  132. 

It  is  indeed  most  amusing  to  a  philosophical  observer  to  remark,  what 
some  good  people  can  do,  most  complacently,  who  would  be  shocked, 
unspeakably,  by  a  Romish  devotion  to  relics.  Thus  we  have  the  chair 
of  the  Dairyman's  Daughter  exhibited  on  a  public  platform,  and  the 
museum  at  Worcester,  Mass.,  matching,  I  dare  say,  any  of  the  mortua- 
ries, &c.,  at  Rome.  Thus  also  Mary  Chilton,  who  first  touched  the 
Rock,  converted  into  a  St.  Catharine  or  St.  Agnes — not  to  use  a  loftier 
name.  And,  what  outstrips  them  all,  we  have  a  chip  of  the  "  Sancti- 
fied Rock"  cut  out  and  inserted  into  the  "Church  of  the  Pilgrims" 
in  Brooklyn,  L.  I.  ;  and,  as  I  am  told  by  an  eyewitness,  at  the  convenient 
height  of  the  foot  of  St.  Peter's  image  at  Rome,  so  that  one  can  kiss  it 
if  he  should  feel  inclined  that  way. 

Now  I  have  no  objection  to  this  veneration  of  relics,  if  people  choose 
to  indulge  it  ;  but  it  is  abominable  to  abuse  a  Romanist  for  indulging  it, 
and  then  do  the  same  thing  ourselves.  But  only  see  how  the  worship- 
pers, (i.  e.,  worshippers  in  the  sense  of  the  Douay  Bible)  of  the  '*  Sancti- 
fied Rock"  show  their  horror  of  a  Romish  superstition.  It  would  have 
been  profane  to  put  the  cross  over  it ;  so  they  put  Neptune's  trident 
there  ! !  !  This  at  least  was  the  proposition,  fully  assented  to,  in  the 
Columbian  Centinel.     Whether  carried  into  execution,  I  cannot  say. 

How  curiously  the  erection  of  a  heathen  symbol  over  the  "  Sanctified 
Rock,"  compares  with  the  cutting  a  Christian  symbol  out  of  the  flag  of 
Massachusetts !  And  notice  also  the  singular  language  of  Mrs.  Adams, 
when  she  "  visited  the  church  at  Leyden,  in  which  our  forefathers  wor- 
shipped." She  did  not  feel  the  veneration  of  a  Christian — oh,  no — but 
"  like  what  the  ancients  paid  to  their  Druids,"  i.  e.,  the  veneration  of  a 
Pagan  idolater!  (Letters  of  Mrs.  Adams,  Boston,  1840,  ii.  150.)  And 
Mr.  Young  quotes  this  with  admiration  !  (Chronicles,  p.  393.)  I  must 
adduce  here  the  language  of  a  Presbyterian,  which  will  come  up  again, 
but  it  will  not  spoil  by  repetition.  "  It  is  ever  true  of  mankind,  that  if 
their  reverence  for  eminent  departed  saints  respects  their  persons  merely, 
and  not  their  religious  belief,  it  degenerates  into  something  approaching 
man-worship  or  idolatry."  (Lit.  and  Theol.  Rev.,  New-York,  1839, 
vol.  vi.  186.)* 

*  The  author  of  Mercurius  Rusticus  saw  this  and  remarked  it,  long  ago.  "  They 
have  their  idols  and  th°ir  idolatry,  as  much  as  the  Church  of  Rome."  He  said  this 
of  their  man-worship.— Merc.  Rus.  Ft.  ii.  141. 


484  NOTES. 

NOTE  75,  p.  135.     (Last  line  but  one  of  the  foot  notes.) 

These  great  men  would  not  leave  England,  unless  they  could  carry 
the  Charter  with  them.  (Chalmers'  Annals,  p.  150,  and  Hutchinson's 
Hist.  i.  19,  20.)  In  order  to  please  them,  it  was  conveyed  over,  and  by 
stealth!  (Chalmers'  Revolt  of  the  Colonies,  i.  44,  49.)  Thus  the  goT- 
ernment  of  Massachusetts  was  begun  by  that  "  simulation,"  her  own 
children  have  ascribed  to  her :  see  Note  72.  And  when  England  dis- 
covered the  sly  conduct  of  the  settlers  of  Massachusetts,  and  began  to 
exercise  a  privilege,  not  only  her  natural  right,  but  a  right  expressly  re- 
served by  the  Charter* — of  preventing  persons  going  to  Massachusetts, 
she  is  called  a  bitter  persecutor  !  England  was  willing  to  let  those  go 
who  would  be  loyal,  i.  e.,  as  we  shall  see,  take  the  oaths  of  allegiance 
and  supremacy.  But  was  it  not  natural,  inevitable,  I  may  say,  for  her  to 
suspect  those  who  would  purloin  her  charter,  and  then  run  off  without 
giving  any  token  of  loyalty?  If  the  magistrate,  according  to  Thomas 
Hooker,  not  only  has  the  power,  but  "  is  hound  to  know  and  judge  of 
the  ways  of  godliness,"  (Summe  of  Church  Discipline,  Pt.  iv.  58,)  surely 
he  is  bound  to  look  after  such  ways  and  doings,  and  to  see  how  they  af- 
fect "  the  nationality"  of  his  country. 

NOTE  76,  p.  140. 

See  what  Higginson  said  in  1629,  to  induce  emigrants  to  come  over, 
i.  e.,"you  that  are  rich!"  Their  children  and  families  "  may  live  as 
well,  both  for  soul  and  body,  as  any  where  in  the  world."  He  closes 
with  saying,  "  While  I  was  writing  this  letter,  my  wife  brought  me  word 
that  the  fishers  had  caught  1600  bass,  at  one  draught,  which  if  they 
were  in  England  were  worth  many  a  pound."  (Hutchinson's  Collect, 
pp.  48,  50.) 

Edward  Winslow  t  talks  in  the  same  style,  when  he  wants  to  toll 
the  rich  over  in  1621 — so  early  a  date  even  as  that!  "  By  the  goodness 
of  God  we  are  so  far  from  want,  that  we  often  wish  you  partakers  of  our 
plenty."  Then,  "  fresh  cod  in  the  summer  is  but  coarse  meat  with  us  ;" 
and  then  such  an  array  of  strawberries,  gooseberries,  raspberries,  plums, 
and  roses,  (Heaven  save  the  mark  !)  as  makes  the  very  mouth  of  the 
reader  water.t    (Mass.  H.  Coll.  2d  ser.  ix.  60-62.) 

*  See  Anc.  Col.  Laws,  edit.  1814,  p.  11,  near  the  bottom.  This  is  admitted 
by  Bancroft,  i.  343. 

f  Winslow  is  a  Puritan  author  of  much  celebrity  ;  and  Mr.  Young  quotes  largely 
from  hira,  in  the  compilation  of  his  Chronicles.  But  it  should  be  carefully  under- 
stood, that  an  honest  Puritan  contemporary  accuses  him  of  telling  in  one  of  hia 
tracts,  no  less  than  ^^  forty  lies.''     Hutch.  Hist.  i.  470. 

i  Compare  the  humiliating  apology  poor  John  Pratt  had  to  make,  for  writing 


NOTES.  485 

No  doubt  the  Puritans,  having  another  object  in  view,  could  talk  in  a 
different  style,  after  the  fashion  of  their  amusing  and  self-depreciating 
petition  to  Parliament  in  1651,  (see  Hutchinson's  Hist.  i.  448,)  when 
they  were  afraid  Parliament  would  put  obstacles  in  the  way  of  "  trading 
roundly  ;"*  and  wherein  we  have  a  studious  display  of  their  poverty, 
though  the  next  year  they  established  a  mint  to  coin  their  own  money  ! 
(Holmes'  Annals,  i.  297.) 

But  as  they  have  told  two  very  different  stories,  they  cannot  complain 
if  their  observers  believe  which  of  the  two  they  please  ;  both  standing  upon 
equal  authority ! 

However,  perhaps  I  may  as  well  inform  my  reader,  how  some  at  least 
of  the  explanations  of  Puritan  sufferings  have  become  current.  They 
were  sick  at  first ;  as  they  were  likely  to  be,  in  a  new  climate  and  an 
uncleared  country,  if  surrounded  with  all  life's  appliances  and  means  — 
And  the  mistake  is,  multitudes  suppose  they  continued  sick,  no  one  knows 
how  long.  But  let  us  hear  an  impartial  annalist.  "  They  found  all  the 
people  they  left  so  ill,  lusty  and  well  for  all  their  poverties,  except  six  that 
died."  (J.  Smith's  Gen.  Hist.  edit.  1819,  ii.  228.)  They  arrived  in  1620, 
and  Smith's  date  is  about  a  year  later ! 

Then  writers  like  Belknap  have  helped  this  on.  He  pretends  to  quote 
Smith  thus :  "  About  an  hundred  Brownists  went  to  New  Plymouth  ; 
whose  humorous  ignorance  caused  them  to  endure  a  wonderful  deal  of 
misery  with  infinite  patience."  (Belknap's  Biog.  i.  317.)  Now  the  gen- 
uine sentence  is  as  follows  ;  the  words  altered  or  omitted  being  put*in 
italics  for  the  sake  of  distinction.  "  About  some  hundred  of  your  Brown- 
ists, of  England,  Amsterdam,  and  Leyden,  went  to  New  Plymouth  ; 
whose  humorous  ignorances  caused  them,  for  more  than  a  year,  to  endure 
a  wonderful  deal  of  misery  with  an  infinite  patience."  (Smith's  Gen. 
Hist.  i.  263.) 

Is  this  the  man  who  presumed  so  condescendingly  to  excuse  Gov. 
Hutchinson  for  an  "  inattention,"  which  he  is  quite  willing,  any  one  can 
see,  to  have  imputed  to  a  worse  fault  ]  (Belknap's  Biog.  ii,  158.)  He 
leaves  out  the  very  pith  and  core  of  Smith's  sentence,  "  for  more  than  a 
year,"  that  we  may  suppose  the  sufferings  of  the  Puritans  were  of  the 
severest  and  most  protracted  kind.  And  now  may  I  not  fairly  say,  it  is 
easy  to  see  how,  in  compositions  less  grave  than  history,  (orations,  poems, 
&c.,)  still  more  partial  representations  have  been  made  ? 

home  that  New  England  was  a  wretched  place  to  live  in.— Savage's  Wint.  i.  173. — 
Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  Ser.  vii.  126. 

*  Among  other  things,  the  tariff  was  too  high.  The  tide  is  now  turned,  and 
New  England  would  fain  see  the  Parliament  back,  to  make  the  tariff  a  little  higher. 
She  should  remember,  however,  that  a  high  tariff  ia  contrary  to  good  Puritan 
doctriue. 


486  NOTES. 

NOTE  77,  p.  142. 
These  oaths  were  not  taken  till  1676,  when  the  Charter  was  trembling 
under  a  threatened  Quo  Warranto.  (Hutchinson,  i.  289.)  On  the  con- 
trary, there  was  a  law  forbidding  any  oath  "  but  such  as  the  General 
Court  hath  considered,  allowed,  and  required"  ;  and  another  requiring 
allegiance  to  Massachusetts,  "  by  the  great  name  of  the  ever-living  God." 
The  King  is  nowhere  alluded  to.  (See  Anc.  Col.  Laws,  p.  171.)*  But 
when  they  wanted  his  Charters,  they  were  his  **  most  humble  subjects  and 
suppliants." 

NOTE  78,  p.  142. 

I  have  already  remarked,  that  the  king  had  expressly  reserved  to  him- 
self the  right  of  prohibiting  any  person  from  settUng  in  Massachusetts, 
(See  note  75.)  So  his  prohibition  was  but  one  of  those  chartered  provi- 
sions, for  which  Massachusetts  was  so  pertinaciously  zealous.  She  there 
fore  had  no  right  to  complain  ;  especially  after  having  run  away  with  the 
Charter  itself. 

But  now,  let  us  look  at  the  actual  prohibition.  It  may  be  found  in 
Hazard's  Coll.  i.  421.  It  is  levelled  against  "promiscuous  and  disorderly 
departing  out  of  the  realm."  It  required  that  a  subsidy  man,  i.  e.,  a  taxa- 
ble man,  one  of  the  upper  classes,  should  not  go  without  license  from  his 
Majesty's  Commissioners  for  Plantations  ;  and  that  one  under  a  subsidy- 
man,  i.  e.,  one  of  humble  life,  and  likely  to  be  made  a  tool  of,  that  he 
should  show,  before  he  went,  that  he  had  taken  the  oaths  of  supremacy 
and  allegiance,  and  could  produce  a  certificate  from  his  minister  of  his 
"  conformity  to,"  not  his  "  approbation  of,"  the  orders  and  discipline  of 
the  Church  of  England.  As  for  the  upper  classes,  they  were  "  assured 
from  some  of  the  Council,  that  his  Majesty  did  not  intend  to  impose  the 
ceremonies  of  the  Church  of  England  upon  them,  for  that  it  was  consid- 
ered it  was  for  the  sake  of  freedom  from  those  things  the  people  went  over 
thither."     (Hutchinson's  Hist.  i.  37.     Hubbard's  N.  Eng.  p.  154.)t 

So  it  is  clear,  all  the  king  wanted,  was  to  be  assured  the  emigrants 
would  be  loyal.  He  and  his  ministry  were  justly  alarmed,  to  find  that 
the  Charter  bad  been  gone  from  England,  for  years,  without  their  know- 
ledge. (Chalmers'  Revolt  of  the  Amer.  Col.,  i.  44,  49.  Hutch.  Hist.,  1. 
37.  Savage's  Wint.,  i.  135,  137.)  They  wanted  an  immediate  and 
effectual  stop  put  to  such  a  state  of  things.     They  were  determined  none 

*  "They  acknowledged  no  standard  but  their  own  charter." — Washburn's  Ju- 
dicial Histoiy  of  Massachusetts,  p.  83. 

t  The  Charter  did  not  grant  even  religious  freedom,  according  to  Judge  Story. — 
Bancroft,  i.  343. 


NOTES,  487 

should  leave  England,  to  plot  against  her.     And  this  self-defensive  act 
was  the  quintessence  of  persecution ! ! 

And  lastly,  to  crown  my  climax,  behold  the  Puritans  themselves  doing 
the  same  thing,  soon  after  they  got  over — actually  trying  to  stop  people 
from  leaving  Massachusetts,  and  that  without  making  any  exception  about 
licenses,  and  throwing  the  whole  colony  into  a  ferment  because  they  can- 
not compass  their  point!  (See  Chalmers'  Annals,  p.  160.  Sav.  Wint., 
i.  140.)  And  then,  to  make  the  cordon  complete,  actually  passing  laws 
prohibiting  the  entrance  of  strangers  upon  their  jurisdiction,  and  that, 
too,  the  very  year  the  king  endeavored  to  prevent  the  departure  of  those, 
who  would  set  him  and  his  government  at  defiance  ;  and  still  be  all  the 
while  pretending  to  act  under  his  chartered  protection  ! !  (See  Savage's 
Wint.,  i.  224.     Hutch.  Hist.  i.  63.     Anc.  Col.  Laws,  pp.  191,  192.) 

NOTE  79,  p.  158. 
President  Quincy  is  one  of  the  most  frank  authorities  upon  this  sub- 
ject, that  I  have  been  able  to  find.  He  does  not  mince  the  matter,  but 
says  plumply,  that  the  Puritans  had  "  an  utter  detestation  of  the  English 
hierarchy,  service,  and  discipline."  Moreover,  he  does  not  give  them 
much  credit  for  the  Arabella  letter,  or  any  of  their  professions  of  friend- 
ship or  allowance  for  the  Church  of  England.  He  admits,  what  it  is 
most  hnportant  for  me  to  notice,  that  they  could  be  guilty  of  duplicity, 
and  even  of  falsehood,  to  gain  their  ends.  "  Though  compelled  by  cir- 
cumstances, sometimes  to  conceal,  and  sometimes  to  deny  this  antipathy, 
it  was  in  truth  one  of  the  master-passions  in  the  breasts  of  those  early 
emigrants,  [he  cannot  say  Pilgrims,]  and  constitutes  a  principal  clew  to 
their  language,  conduct,  policy,  and  laws."  (Harv.  Univer.,  i.  351.)  I 
have  no  doubt  of  the  entire  truth  of  the  venerable  President's  statement ; 
but  I  could  not,  as  he  appears  to  do,  hold  in  lofty  estimation,  men  who 
could  conceal  the  existence  of  a  master-passion — a  passion  spread  over 
and  tinging  all  their  words  and  works — and  when  close  pressed,  stoutly 
deny  it.  This  to  me  is  downright  Jesuitry  ;  or  plain  equivocation  and 
lying,  disguise  it  rhetorically  as  you  will.*  I  do  not  understand  how  a 
man  is  compelled,  by  circumstances  which  affect  his  worldly  interest,  to  be 
guilty  of  such  things.  There  is  a  plain  Scripture  for  tlds  subject,  if  not 
for  all  the  peculiarities  of  Congregationalism,  as  I  am  perfectly  ready  to 
concede.     And  it  is  this  :  "  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness." 

*  The  Puritans  themselves,  of  course,  could  not  be  expected  to'see  this  ;  fo  Mr. 
Washburn  assures  us  their  very  courts  proceeded  upon  the  loosest  principles.  "  The 
courts  of  the  colony  seem  to  have  paid  little  regard  to  the  ordinary  rules  of  evi- 
dence."—Judicial  History  of  Massachusetts,  p.  55. 


488  NOTES. 

NOTE  80,  p.  162. 
Mr.  Brattle,  in  1696,  forbade  a  layman  to  officiate  at  hia  ordination. 
It  was  a  deviation,  says  President  Quincy, "  from  the  established  practice 
of  the  early  Congregational  churches."  (Harv.  Univer.,  i.  88,  89,  comp. 
p.  489.)  The  so-called  leather-mitten  ordination  proves,  incontestably, 
the  interference  of  the  laity  at  Congregational  ordinations.  This  was 
the  ordination  of  Israel  Chauncey,  son  of  President  Chauncey,  and  set- 
tled at  Stratford,  Connecticut.  Here  the  brethren  insisted  on  their  right 
to  lay  on  hands  ;  in  doing  which  one  forgot  to  take  off  his  leather  mit- 
ten. Hence  the  name  of  the  ordination.  "  It  was  not  long  after  this,'' 
says  Dr.  Eliot,  in  his  Dictionary, "  that  in  Connecticut  and  Massachusetts 
the  clergy  deprived  the  brethren  of  this  privilege."  "  But,"  adds  he,  with 
a  perfect  consciousness  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  Congregational  system, 
"  could  we  now  refuse  them  if  they  insisted  upon  it  V  (Eliot's  Biog. 
Diet.,  p.  101.  Pierce's  Hist.  Harv.  Univer.,  p.  163.  Compare  Mass. 
Hist.  Coll.,  2d  ser.,  i.  166.) 

The  editor  of  the  Cambridge  Platform  of  1829  tries  to  get  over  a 
second  and  third  ordination  of  the  same  person,  upon  his  having  a  second 
or  third  congregation,  by  saying  that  the  Platform  makes  no  difference 
"  between  Ordination  and  Installation."  (See  Platform,  1829,  p.  43.)* 
No  difference  indeed  1  It  knows  no  such  thing  as  an  Installation — that 
is  a  modern  manufacture,  to  cover  up  the  absurdity  of  ordaining  the  same 
person  (if  need  be)  half  a  dozen  times  over.  The  Platform  speaks  of  a 
man  ordained  a  second  time  over  a  new  congregation,  as  "  again  orderly 
called  unto  office  ••"  by  a  second  imposition  of  hands,  also,  and  not  as 
called  unto  a  new  place  for  an  old  office.  Thus  my  readers  will  see  the 
Congregationalists  are  ignorant  of  their  own  sj^stem,  or  artfully  try  to 
hide  its  defects.  But  no  wonder :  they  can  conceal  or  deny  systematic- 
ally, as  President  Quincy  tells  us,  when  circumstances  require. 

*  Mr.  Felt  tries  the  same  game.  See  his  Annals  of  Salem,  p.  207.  But  the  ar- 
tifice is  too  shallow  for  a  Churchman.  He  understands  the  mysteries  of  ordination, 
&c.,  too  well.  The  Congregationalists  never  impose  hands  at  an  Installation,  any 
more  than  a  bishop  at  an  Institution.  Moreover,  such  efforts  as  these  of  the  Editor 
of  the  Platform,  and  of  Mr.  Felt,  are  shown  to  be  superlatively  effete,  by  a  contem- 
porary publication  of  the  Prssbyterians,  levelled  against  the  old  Platform  itself:  I 
allude  to  the  Jus  Divinum  Jifinisterii  Evangelici  of  1654.  There  the  Congregational- 
ists are  duly  taken  to  task,  for  the  allowance  of  double,  treble,  &;c.  ardinaticms— not  a 
word  about  installation ;  showing  how  modern  a  coinage  that  is.  "  Interpretatio  con- 
temporanea  fortissima  est."  So  Mr.  Editor  and  Mr.  Felt  amount  to  nothing. — See 
Jus  Divinum,  Part  First,  pp.  145,  etc. 

It  may  be  well  enough  to  add  here,  that  Bingham  says  these  double  and  treble  ordi- 
nations are  a  device  and  practice  of  Geneva.  Calvin,  whose  ordination  of  any  sort 
has  been  doubted,  might  willingly  encouiago  such  a  practice.— Biogbam's  VVorlu, 
ix.  308. 


NOTES.  489 

The  fact  is,  a  genuine  Congregationalist  considers  himself  not  only  as 
out  of  office,  when  he  leaves  a  particular  congregation,  but  out  of  the 
Church,  too,  till  he  unites  himself  with  a  new  congregation !  !  Thus 
"  Mr.  Lathrop,  who  had  been  pastor  of  a  private  congregation  in  London," 
when  he  came  over  to  Boston,  durst  not  receive  their  Eucharist,  although 
present  at  the  ceremony,  till  he  had  been  again  taken  formally  into  com- 
munion. (Sav,  Wint.  i.  144.)  Dr.  Eliot  in  his  Diet.  p.  5^3,  says,  "  He 
met  the  ideas  of  our^fathers  upon  this  subject,"  and  that  Master  Cotton 
(then  not  over)  rebuked  them  for  it.  "  I  am  constrained,"  he  said,  "  to 
bear  witness  against  your  judgment  and  practice,  that  you  think  no  man 
may  be  admitted  to  the  sacrament,  though  a  member  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  except  he  be  a  member  of  some  particular  church."*  Master 
Cotton,  it  seems,  had  some  little  leaven  of  churchmanship  left  in  him,  till 
he  reached  Boston.     Then  he  soon  got  rid  of  the  uncomfortable  exotic. 

To  add  another  authority  upon  this  curious  subject.  A  magistrate 
visiting  Salem,  had  a  child  born  there.  He  wanted  baptism  for  his  in- 
fant, and  the  Communion  for  himself;  and  was  refused  both  !  (Felt's 
Salem,  p.  526.)  Here  Cotton  broke  out,  and  showed  his  aristocratical  tem- 
per, (he  was  then  in  Boston,)  by  saying  that  a  godly  magistrate  had  a 
right,  as  a  magistrate,  to  the  seals  of  the  Covenant,  be  he  where  he  might. 
This  is  farcical  enough,  and  should  be  well  remembered  by  all  those  Pu- 
ritans, who  have  berated  the  administration  of  the  Communion  to  new- 
made  magistrates  in  England — a  thing,  however,  now  done  away  with. 

NOTE  81,  p.  163. 
This  subject  of  re-ordination  puzzles  the  Editor  of  Winthrop's  Jour- 
nal, for  he  says  "  ordination  by  a  bishop  must  have  been  thought  valid." 
"  But  how  it  should  be  a  sin,  yet  a  valid  entrance  to  the  Christian  minis- 
try, can  be  explained  only  by  such  timid  casuists  as  humbled  themselves 
for  their  act  in  submitting  to  it."  (Sav.  Wint.  i.  217,  note.)  Now 
timidity  in  casuistry,  or  Jesuitry,  according  to  President  Quincy,was  one 
of  Puritanism's  most  infrequent  sins.  The  Hon.  Mr.  Savage  will  find  the 
clue  to  help  him  out  of  his  trouble,  in  the  clear  quotation  of  Mr.  Felt. 
Such  ministers  of  the  Church  of  England  as  could  prove  they  had  a  call 
from  their  people,  should  be  considered  as  ministers  ;  a  bishop  out  of  the 
question.     Such  as  had  nothing  but  an  Episcopal  ordination  to  back  them, 

*  They  did  worse  than  that,  they  would  not  baptize  Mr.  Coddington's  child,  be- 
cause, though  a  member  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  one  of  the  signers  of  the 
Arabella  Letter,  he  had  not  subscribed  to  their  new  covenant.  So  they  accounted  a 
membership  in  the  Church  of  England,  as  nothing  after  all. — Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  ser. 
17,  note. 


490  NOTES. 

should  humble  themselves  and  repent.*  This  was  clearly  making  a  mere 
Episcopal  ordination  a  sin,  and  a  matter  also  of  supreme  indifference  and 
contempt — in  fact,  a  perfect  immorality,  if  not  a  fearful  crime.  And  this, 
the  true  Congregational  theory  makes  just  as  necessary  as  ever.t  So  if 
Congregationalists  do  now,  in  spite  of  their  system,  allow  Episcopal  ordi- 
nation, we  owe  no  thanks  to  their  system  for  this  seeming  condescension. 

NOTE  82,  p.  166. 

It  is  no  uncommon  thing  for  Congregational  ministers  to  become 
laymen,  in  the  view  of  their  own  people.  Thus  I  have  a  sermon  by 
"  The  Rev.  Edward  Everett,"  late  our  ambassador  to  England — another 
by  "  The  Rev.  Jared  Sparks,"  the  biographer  of  Washington,  &.c.,  late 
editor  of  the  North  American  Review — and  a  whole  volume,  by  the 
"  Rev.  J.  G.  Palfrey,  D.  D.,  LL.  D.,"  now  secretary  of  state  of  Massa- 
chusetts ! 

These  things  look  strange — outre — to  a  Churchman  ;  but  they  are  all 
in  keeping  with  the  strictest  Congregationalism  ;  for,  singular  as  it  may 
seem,  the  Unitarians,  as  mere  Congregationalists,  are  stricter  than  the 
Calvinists. 

NOTE  83,  p.  172. 
Higginson's  action  as  a  lajTtian  is  an  abundant  denial  to  Dr.  Allen's 
assenion,  p.  225  of  his  Dictionary,  that  T.  Carter's  case  is  the  only  un- 
doubted one  of  lay  ordination.     Dr.  A.  forgets  the  principle  on  which 

*  It  was  a  gad  thing  with  the  Puritans,  that  the  Presbyterians  did  not  always  be- 
wail and  renounce  their  Episcopal  ordinations.  "  A  man  may  come  into  40  places, 
where  they  are  preaching  and  praying  even  upon  days  of  humiliation,  and  yet  never 
hear  them  bewaile  (among  multitudes  of  other  sinnes  they  confesse)  this  particular 
evill  of  their  Antichristian  ordination." — Bartlet's  Congregational  Way,  p.  120,  and 
its  own  italics. — Compare  Ball's  Answer,  p.  125,  to  Ctinne,  the  successor  of  the  Mr. 
Lathrop  mentioned  in  Note  80. 

People  have  naw  not  the  slightest  idea  of  the  excessive  scrupulosity  of  the  Puri- 
tans, about  a  right  to  administer  sacraments.  It  was  questioned  even,  whether 
the  teacher  of  a  congregation  could  baptize  ;  many  supposing  the  'pastor  only  compe- 
tent to  do  it. — Cotton's  Way  of  the  Churches,  edit.  1645.  p.  67. — Moreover.  Arch- 
bishop Whitgift  said  that  not  Puritans  only,  but  Continental  Protestants  generally, 
would  not  acknowledge  Episcopal  ordination  in  his  day,  but  insisted  upon  re-ordina- 
tion.—See  Brett  on  Tradition,  Pt.  i.  p.  49.    London,  1718. 

How.  with  what  semblance  of  propriety,  can  they  complain  of  Episcopalians, 
whose  forefathers  were  thus  hostile  to  our  ministry  as  an  utter  nullity,  or  what  is 
worse,  a  most  grievous  sin  .'j 

t  It  was  no  new  thing  to  cast  contempt  on  Episcopal  ordination,  in  the  days  of 
early  New  England  history.  It  began  even  in  the  reign  of  Q.ueen  Elizabeth. — 
Soame's  Elizabeth,  p.  255.  Comparo  Nichols'  Def.  of  the  Church  of  England,  p.  SO. 
—Bingham's  Works,  ix.  239. 


NOTES.  49  J 

that  ordination  was  performed,  viz.,  on  that  of  the  entire  competency  of 
the  brethren  to  do  such  an  act,  and  that  Congregational  ministers  were 
present  who  made  no  objection.  He  forgets  himself  too,  for,  on  p.  464, 
he  says  Mr.  Hooker  also  had  lay  ordination.  He  forgets  the  ordination 
of  Mr.  Higginson's  son  in  1660,  when  Major  Hathome  and  two  other 
brethren  (they  kept  the  canon  of  the  Council  of  Nice  in  having  three 
ordainers)  laid  on  hands,  and  "  the  messengers  of  the  churches,"  some 
beyond  a  doubt  ministers,  offered  no  scruple  at  their  exclusion,  as  a  lay 
brother  afterwards  did  at  his.  (See  Hutchinson's  Hist.  i.  374,  375  ;  and 
Quincy's  Harv.  Univ.  i.  489.)  He  forgets  Dr.  Belknap's  defence  of  Dr. 
Freeman's  ordination  by  the  laymen  of  King's  Chapel,  on  the  score  of 
'principle.  (See  Greenwood's  K.  Chapel,  p.  195.)  He  forgets,  too,  such 
cases  as  Trumbull  gives  in  his  Connecticut,  i.  286  ;  where  the  brethren 
ordain  in  spite  of  the  ministers,  and  in  contempt  of  their  prerogative. 
Nevertheless,  the  zeal  of  Dr.  Allen  to  gloss  this  matter  over,  shows  us 
where  another  of  Congregationalism's  sensitive  spots  and  weak  points 
may  be  known  to  lie. 

NOTE  84,  p.  181. 

"  Other  principles  and  opinions."  I  am  taught  by  experience  to 
weigh  the  words  of  a  Puritan  author,  as  I  would  those  of  a  Jesuit. 
Hubbard  died,  as  I  state,  in  1704  ;  and  was  born  in  1621.  He  could 
not  be  unacquainted  with  so  notorious  a  book*  as  Edward  Johnson's 
"  Wonderworking  Providence,"  published  in  1654.  Yet  in  that  book, 
Churchmen  are  stigmatized  as  one  in  a  sevenfold  class  of  "  sectaries," 
with  whom  the  Puritans  are  warned  "  never  to  make  league  ;"  and 
indeed  warned  never  to  tolerate,  but  to  "  lay  out"  their  "  coin  for  pow- 
der, bullets,  match,  arms  of  all  sorts,"  to  keep  such  pestilent  heretics 
away.    (Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  ser.  ii.  58,  59.) 

And  now,  forsooth,  Hubbard  knows  no  one  among  the  Puritans,  who 
did  not  always  regard  the  Church  of  England  with  filial  affection. 

But  the  end  of  my  climax  is  yet  to  come.  Johnson  tries  the  same 
game,  and  would  fain  undo  his  own  words.  He  tries  to  meet  the  accu- 
sation that  the  Puritans  were  persecutors.  He  denies  the  charge.  He 
says  they  never  persecuted  heretics  ;  they  only  "  endeavored  to  expel 
all  such  beasts  of  prey."  (Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  ser.  iv.  22.)  Thank  you. 
Captain  Johnson.t     Then   England  never  persecuted  the  Puritans,  she 

*  "  Of  great  value,"  says  Allen  in  his  Diet.  p.  496. 

■f  Johnson  figured  among  the  Puritan  militia.    He  was  one  of  the  forty  who  ar- 
rested and  dragged  poor  Gorton  to  Boston.     Allen's  Diet.  p.  496. 


492  NOTES. 

only  endeavored  to  drive  them  away — or,  at  any  rate,  to  keep  them 
from  eating  herself  up. 

This  is  Puritan  logic  ;  for  we  have  seen  specimens  of  the  same  in 
Mr.  Bancroft  and  Dr.  Hawes.  But  it  is  less  creditable  than  Cromwell's, 
who  once,  at  least,  spent  his  force  on  things  and  not  on  persons.  "  Upon 
the  surrender  of  a  town  in  Ireland,  the  popish  governor  insisted  upon  an 
article  for  liberty  of  conscience.  Cromwell  said,  *  He  meddled  with  no 
man's  conscience  ;  but  if  by  liberty  of  conscience  the  governor  meant  the 
liberty  of  the  mass,  he  had  express  orders  from  the  Parliament  of  Eng- 
land against  admitting  any  such  liberty  at  all.' "  One  can  smile  at 
Cromwell's  logic,  for  it  has  real  ingenuity  ;  and  as  Swift  admits,  from 
whom  I  quote  it,  genuine  force.  The  other  is  mere  Jesuitical  evasion. 
(See  Dean  Swift's  Thoughts  on  Religion,  near  the  end.  Or,  Works,  xiv. 
160.) 

NOTE  85,  p.  163. 

The  Browns  are  perpetuated  by  an  inscription  on  a  handsome  marble 
tablet  in  St.  Peter's  church,  Salem,  Mass.,  of  which  the  following  is  a 
copy. 

"  In  memory  of  John  and  Samuel  Bro^s*n,  members  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Company,  A.  D.  1628  ;  the  former  of  the  first  Court  of  Asast- 
ants,  and  both  members  of  the  first  council ;  to  w^hose  intrepidity  in  the 
cause  of  religious  freedom,  this,  the  first  Episcopal  Society  gathered  in 
New  England,  imder  God  owed  its  establishment,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord 
1629:  and  in  memory  of  Philip  English,  who,  in  the  year  1733,  pre- 
sented the  land  on  which  this  edifice  is  erected  ;  this  tablet  is  inscribed 
in  the  year  1S33,  as  a  grateful  memorial  of  their  devotion  to  the  cause  of 
Christianity,  and  to  the  ritual  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church." 

NOTE  86,  p.  190. 

The  writer  is  clear  enough  that  Puritanism  would  not  allow  a  man 
to  be  a  freeholder,  or  a  voter,  unless  he  belonged  to  the  Puritan  church 
establishment.  "  Notwithstanding,"  says  a  writer  of  the  known  reputa- 
tion of  the  Hon.  Mr.  Everett,  "  we  are  indebted  to  them  [the  Puritans] 
for  two  great  principles" — one  of  which  is  "  the  separation  of  church  and 
state."  (Everett's  Orations,  p.  225.     And  so  Bancroft,  i.  348.) 

WTiy,  as  I  have  elsewhere  shown.  Episcopal  Virginia  began  with  our 
present  democratical  boast — universal  sulfrage — while  church  and  state 
were  not  entirely  severed  in  Massachusetts  till  1834  !  Is  it  strange,  is 
it  at  all  strange,  if  (to  let  Mr.  Bancroft  pass,)  a  writer  of  Gov.  Everett's 
wide-spread  reputation  can  either  make  such  mistakes,  or  perpetuate 


NOTES.  493 

them,  that  thousands  of  humbler  minds  should  be  utterly  deceived  about 
the  genuine  character  of  Puritan  history  ? 

I  may  be  thought  presumptuous,  in  impeaching  such  a  name  as  Mr. 
Everett's.  I  take  shelter,  therefore,  behind  a  greater.  Justice  Story* 
distinctly  says,  that  "  the  fundamental  error  of  our  ancestors,  an  error 
which  began  with  the  very  settlement  of  the  colony,  was  a  doctrine 
which  has  since  been  happily  exploded  ;  I  mean  the  necessity  of  a  union 
between  church  and  state.  To  this  they  clung  as  the  ark  of  their  safety.' 
(Story's  Miscell.  p.  66.)  And  is  it  from  such  men  that  we  learn  to 
separate  church  and  state — nay,  as  Bancroft  hardily  represents  it,  to 
separate  them  entirely  ?  Why  one  could  as  soon  endorse  the  sopho- 
more's syllogism,  "  Moses  was  the  meekest  man  ;  but  Jonah  lay  in  the 
whale's  belly  ;  therefore  David  killed  Goliah." 

NOTE  87,  p.  197. 

Laud's  severity  is  of  course  a  hackneyed  topic.  Yet  Archbp.  Abbot, 
who,  as  Rapin  says,  (ii.  179,)  "  Was  even  suspected  and  accused  of 
being  a  Puritan,"  was  severer  than  he  was ! ! 

Laud  was  not  a  man  to  deal  in  generalities  and  slang,  like  his  accu- 
sers ;  so  when  charged  with  severity,  he  went  to  the  Records  of  the  High- 
Commission  Court  to  ascertain  the  facts.  Archbp.  Abbot  was  arch- 
bishop, he  says,  twenty-one  years  :t  he  himself,  before  his  commitment 
to  the  tower,  was  archbishop  seven  years.  Yet,  he  says,  he  found  in  the 
records,  that  three  more  censures,  deprivations,  &.c.,  were  inflicted  in 
every  seven  of  Archbp.  Abbot's  term  of  twenty-one  years,  than  in  his 
own  term  of  seven  simply.  So  all  his  official  life,  (and  the  scrutiny  is  a 
fair  specimen  of  Laud's  accuracy,)  Archbp.  Abbot,  the  Puritan,  was 
severer  than  Archbp.  Laud,  the  high-churchman  ! !  (See  Laud's  Trou- 
bles, p.  164.) 

Still,  Archbp.  Abbot  was  highly  popular  with  the  Puritanical  party. 
And  now,  what  does  all  this  show,  but  that  a  man  might  act  as  a  high- 
churchman,  a  persecutor,  or  almost  any  body,  so  long  as  he  would  secretly 
countenance  Puritan  orthodoxy  1  But  this  is  just  what  a  Jesuit  would 
allow.  And  so  here  is  another  of  the  many,  many  points  of  resemblance, 
between  the  Puritan-Protestant  and  the  Puritan-Papist. 

*  Neal's  New  England,  too,  shows  that  even  the  system  of  tithes  was  resorted 
to,  and  actually  argued  against  the  Quakers  !  See  also  Note  8  j  and  Blagden's  ad- 
mission which  produced  it.     Neal's  N.  E.  ii.  367. 

f  The  Ap.  was  an  archbishop  for  23  years  ;  yet  in  consequence  of  his  accident- 
ally killing  a  man,  when  hunting,  his  faculties  were  for  a  while  suspended.  It  is 
not  surprising  that  he  became  an  enemy  to  field-sports. 

22 


494  NOTES. 

NOTE  88,  p.  199. 
Hubbard  stretches  verbal  truth  to  the  utmost,  or  tells  a  downright 
untruth,  when  he  says  no  authority  but  the  king;'s  was  ever  recognized 
in  Massachusetts,  during  Cromwell's  usurpation  !*  (N.  Eng.  pp.  575, 
576.  Compare  Hutchinson's  Coll.  p.  326.)  His  language  is  Jesuitical, 
and  he  means,  probably,  that  Massachusetts  de  jure  never  recognized 
any  thing  but  her  own  charter,  which  was  given  by  royal  authority .t 
But  under  such  a  cover  to  attack  the  disloyalty  of  her  sister  colonies,  is,  I 
will  not  say  to  be  wanting  in  courtesy,  it  is  to  be  wanting  in  honesty. 
For  de  facto  Massachusetts  (see  Note  72,)  could  pay  heed  enough  to 
Cromwell's  commands — nay,  she  could  be  his  pander,  to  sell  his  Scotch 
enemies  into  slavery  "  for  six,  seven,  or  eight  years."  (Hutchinson's 
Collect,  p.  235. )t  And  yet  I  have  known  this  treatment  of  the  Scotch 
extolled  as  a  mercy  !  It  is  so  extolled  by  Master  Cotton,  on  the  very 
page  quoted  ;  because  the  Scotch  whom  Cromwell  shipped  over  to  New 
England  after  the  battle  of  Dunbar,  were  not  sold  into  "  perpetuall  servi- 
tude." Oh,  let  it  be  noted  as  an  example,  that  Puritanism,  in  its  tender 
mercy,  sells  white  prisoners  into  six,  seven,  or  eight  years'  slavery — poor 
Indians,  whom  its  main  chartered  duty  it  was  to  convert  to  Christianity, 
it  sells  for  life  !§ 

NOTE  89,  p.  206. 
This  idea  is  not  a  conjuration  of  fancy.     Boston  used  to  be  a  noisy 
place  for  carts,  &c.,  if  it  is  not  still.     In   1749,  (see  Prov.  Laws,  folio,  p. 

*  No  authority  but  the  king's  !  Why  they  proclaimed  a  fast  to  preserve  Crom- 
well from  "ranters,  Quakers,  and  plotters;"  and  that  the  Lord  might  help  him 
•gainst  Antichrist:  that  is,  I  suppose,  against  prelacy. — Felt's  Salem,  pp.  192,  193. 

f  "  All  agreed,"  says  Winthrop,  when  the  nature  of  their  constitution  was  de- 
bated, "that  our  charter  was  the  foundation  of  our  government."  But  Dr.  Bentley 
gays  they  disregarded  the  patent. — M.  P.  Coll.  1st  ser.  viii.  2.— Sav.  Wint.  ii.  279. 

X  Doubtless  they  got  them  cheap  enough.  Cromwell  sold  prisoners  for  twelve 
pence  a  head. — Walker's  Hist.  Independency,  Ft.  i.  95.  Compare  p.  144  3  also,  Pt. 
il  62,  and  Pt.  iii.  26.— Also  Dugdale's  Short  View,  p.  577. 

$  Hubbard's  testimony  is  curious  enough,  at  the  best ;  and  at  one  moment  since 
writing  this  note  1  was  ready  to  condemn  him  for  downright  falsehood,  when  I  fount! 
Chalmers,  in  his  Revolt  of  the  Colonies,  saying  that  Massachusetts  doomed  to  death 
any  one,  who  took  up  arms  for  the  King  against  the  Parliament.  (Revolt,  i.  86.)  But 
CD  p.  91 ,  he  says  Massachusetts  never  formally  acknowledged  Cromwell  after  all — only 
she  asked  favors  of  him,  and  dodged  his  claims.  So  upon  the  whole,  as  this  is  quite 
characteristic,  I  must  let  Master  Hubbard  go,  and  refer  to  Note  72. — Mr.  Savage's 
note  (Wint.  ii.  247,)  can  be  compared  with  this,  and  also  p.  300,  same  volume 
which  shows  that  no  legal  instruments  were,  in  early  days,  allowed  to  run  in  the 
king's  name.  Also,  p.  100,  to  show  how  the  oath  of  allegiance  was  rejected.  And 
they,  all  the  while,  truly  loyal ! 


NOTES.  495 

63,)  a  law  had  actually  to  be  passed,  to  keep  carts,  &,c.,  from  disturbing 
the  Legislature. 

NOTE  90,  p.  206. 

Snow,  in  his  history  of  Boston,  alludes  to  the  principle  on  which  prayer 
at  funerals  had  been  abstained  from,  viz.,  "  lest  it  might  in  time  introduce 
the  customs  of  the  English  Church."  (p.  92.)  Upon  a  similar  principle, 
Calvin  forbade  it  in  his  society  at  Geneva,  (The  Phoenix,  ii.  267  ;)  and 
Knox  in  the  Kirk  of  Scotland.  (Knox's  Liturgy.  Cumming's  edit.  p. 
105.)  The  Puritans,  in  the  Directory  of  the  days  of  the  Commonwealth, 
did  the  same  ;  (Neal,  iii.  170,  and  v.  344  ;)  and  I  am  sorry  to  say,  this  is 
a  fault  from  which  even  the  Huguenots  were  not  free.  (Quick's  Synod- 
icon,  i.  p.  xliv.  Compare,  however,  Bingham's  explanation  of  this. — 
Wks.  ix.  206.) 

Thus  it  is,  that  an  effort  to  avoid  superstition  sometimes  begets  irrev- 
erence. Surely  the  proper  way  to  cure  a  wrong  praying  over  the  dead,  or 
for  the  dead,  cannot  be  to  pray  not  at  all.*  Yet  we  see  about  all  Protes- 
tants, save  those  of  the  Church  of  England,  fell  into  this  mistake,  and  have 
had  to  retrace  their  steps. 

There  is  another  error  about  an  occasional  religious  ceremony,  into 
which,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  Puritans  alone  fell.  This  was  to  allow  none 
but  magistrates  to  solemnize  marriages.  (See  Snow's  Boston  as  before,  p. 
1 92.)  At  the  instance  of  their  first  Episcopal  governor,  this  was  corrected  ; 
but  the  result  of  the  old  practice  has  been  the  low  and  mischievous  doc- 
trine, that  marriage  is  but  a  civil  contract  merely.  Hence  the  ease  with 
which  divorces  are  granted,  in  Connecticut  and  elsewhere.  (Remarks 
on  a  Rev.  of  Inchiquin's  Letters, pp.  128, 129.)  For  modern  views  of  the 
mere  worldly,  secular  character  of  marriage,  we  have  then  to  thank  the 
Puritans  !  And  this  is  the  way  to  cure  the  superstition  of  Papists,  who 
call  matrimony  a  sacrament,  and  of  Prelatists,  who  marry  by  a  priest 
and  with  a  ring  ! ! 

NOTE  91,  p.  209. 

It  is  not   true,  however,  that    the   Baptists  were  entirely  free  from 

burdens,  till  after   the    American  Revolution — nor  then,  indeed.  (See 

Benedict's  Baptists,  i.  381,  and  further  onward  in  the  same  vol.  Also 
vol.  ii.  482-86.) 

*  The  way,  however,  to  avoid  superstition  about  fish-eating  was  different. 
Dun-fish  is  excellent,  so  it  would  not  answer  to  give  it  up.  Therefi)re  the  Puritan 
way  of  eating  fish  is,  to  eat  it  Saturday  instead  of  Friday.  There  are  no  better  dun- 
fish  in  the  world,  than  in  the  land  of  the  Puritans.    This  I  know. 


496  NOTES. 

While  upon  this  subject,  I  cannot  forbear  mentioning  a  most  curious 
fact.  It  is  well  known  that  the  Revolution  grew  out  of  the  resistance  of 
the  Colonies  to  their  taxation  by  England.  The  Puritans  should  have 
been  the  last  to  repudiate  such  taxation ;  for  they  hesitated  not  to  tax 
English  property y  whenever  they  could,  by  any  pretence,  lay  their  hands 
on  it.  Mr.  Felt  admits,  that  so  early  as  1639,  "they  ordered  persons 
here,  and  through  the  Colony,  who  owned  estates  in  England,  to  be  taxed 
for  them."     (Felt's  Salem,  p.  121.) 

And  these  are  the  people  who  raised  such  a  hue  and  cry  against  taxa- 
tion without  representation  I*  Were  these  persons  who  owned  estates 
in  England  allowed  to  vote  in  Puritan  councils  ?  Never,  unless  they 
owned  the  Puritan  covenant.  Without  that  qualification,  they  could  not 
be  so  much  as  freemen. t  Yet  without  representation,  without  a  title  to 
so  much  as  the  elective  franchise,  they  might  be  taxed  for  estates  situated 
under  another  government,  3000  miles  away,  and  taxed  over  again  under 
that  government,  for  its  legitimate  support.  And  this  in  the  land  of 
liberty,  and  by  the  fiat  of  the  refugees  of  persecution  !  This  by  men,  to 
whom  the  taxation  of  England,  (looked  upon  by  England  as  but  an  equiv- 
alent for  charter  privileges,)  was  a  usurpation,  the  most  monstrous  the 
heavens  ever  saw ! 

NOTE  92,  p.  212. 

Myself  doubtless  will  be  esteemed  most  prejudiced.  I  therefore  quote 
the  Hon.  Mr.  Savage.  "  Put  not  your  faith  in  Mather,"  he  says.  (Sav. 
Wint.  ii.  331,  note.)  Moreover,  he  adds,  this  saying  will  become  an 
axiom. t 

President  Quincy,  in  his  Hist.  Harv.  Univ.,  vol.  i.  pp.  91, 156,  shows 
how  the  records  of  the  College  could  be  tampered  with,  and  false  facts 
made  out  to  suit  a  purpose.  Such  things  abundantly  warrant  the  low 
faith  I  sometimes  put  in  Puritan  authorities,  and  the  suspicions  I  have 
thrown  upon  them.  \i  ti  public  address  of  Puritan  ministers  could,  as 
Quincy  (i.  156)  most  satisfactorily  shows,  tell  a  palpable  fib  ;  then  Puri- 

*  It  must  be  remembered,  that  I  apply  this  language  to  the  Puritans  only.  1 
agree  to  the  doctrine  of  our  forefathers,  that  taxation  and  representation  should  go 
together,  and  I  believe  in  their  complaints  of  grievances.  But  I  see  not  how  tha 
Puritans  could  complain  of  England's  conduct,  when  they  had  already  set  her  the 
example. 

t  And  this,  as  usual,  is  an  imitation  of  Popery.  The  theory  of  Popery  is,  that 
government  is  founded  in  grace,  and  so  none  but  the  gracious  must  have  a  share  in 
it.  Massachusetts  was  once  taught  this  sharp  lesson  in  her  own  legislature. — See 
Leland's  Speech.     Benedict's  Baptists,  ii.  485. 

X  Compare  Edwards'  Mss.  history,  quoted  in  Benedict's  Baptists,  i.  469. 


NOTES.  497 

tan  ecclesiastical  documents  are  to  be  watched,  as  the  "  European  Set- 
tlements" said  the  Pilgrims  were  in  Holland.  The  conclusion  is  una- 
Toidable  ;  for  confidence  (as  many  seem  not  to  be  aware)  is  not,  and 
cannot  be,  a  voluntary  thing. 

NOTE  93,  p.  224. 

Gov.  Andross,  as  we  see,  has  been  bitterly  censured  for  this  act.  But 
he  did  first,  what  they  said  they  did  with  the  Quakers — tried  to  coax, 
and  found  it  ineffectual.  Moreover,  at  the  worst,  he  did  but  exercise 
the  prerogative  awarded  him  by  Thomas,  "  the  judicious  Hooker"  of 
New  England.  "  The  supreme  magistrate  hath  liberty  and  power,  both 
to  inquire  and  judge  of  professions  and  religions,  which  is  true  and 
ought  to  be  maintained,  which  is  false  and  ought  to  be  rejected."  (Sur- 
vey of  Church  Discipline,  Pt.  iv.  p.  57.)  Such  discipline  as  this  Puritan 
Solomon  sanctions,  would  have  allowed  Andross  to  shut  up  the  Old 
South  altogether,  except  for  his  own  use. 

It  is  hard  for  me  to  believe  the  severe  comments  of  the  Puritans  on 
Andross,  for  his  administration  in  Massachusetts.*  Dr.  Allen  in  his  Dic- 
tionary, (art.  Andross,)  who  is  caustic  in  his  remarks  on  him,  admits  that, 
previously,  as  Governor  of  New- York,  and  afterwards,  as  Governor  of 
Virginia,  he  behaved  very  well.  Burk  says  he  had  "  a  sound  judgment 
and  a  liberal  policy,"  and  was  "  of  a  conciliating  deportment  and  of  great 
generosity."  (Burk's  Va.  ii.  316.)  Even  Allen  concedes  that  he  hegan 
fairly  in  Massachusetts.  And,  now,  what  was  one  of  his  foremost  and 
heaviest  offences  ]  Why,  that  the  Charter  being  vacated,  their  legal 
title  to  lands  was  gone,  and  they  must  have  a  new  one.  And  what 
if  he  so  held  ?  Well  might  I  say,  imitating  Mr.  Greenwood,  *  What 
a  retribution  !  Think  of  the  days  of  Roger  Williams !'  Was  it  not 
their  very  own,  darling  doctrine  against  poor  Roger  and  the  Indians, 
that  the  royal  charter  gave  them  a  title  to  Massachusetts  soil  ?  did  they 
not  maintain  this  dor-trine,  to  the  sad  detriment  of  both  ?  and  if  the  doc- 
trine were  true,  did  not  all  the  Charter  gave,  depart  with  it  when  it  died? 
and  what  then  did  Andross  do,  but  use  their  own  position  against  them- 
selves 1 

I  should  be  loath  to  say,  that  the  sufferings  of  the  Puritans  under 
Andross  were  Heaven's  vindication  of  Williams  and  the  Aborigines  ;  but 
if  I  had  a  Puritan  tact  at  interpreting  and  applying  Scripture,  I  should 
do  so  without  hesitation.     And  at  any  rate,  if  the  chief  sin  of  Andross 

*  Mr.  Washburn,  in  his  Judicial  History,  (p.  94,  etc.)  condemns  Andross  severely 
as  a  matter  of  course.  Yet,  on  p.  104,  he  admits  that  he  improved  the  forms  of  jus- 
tice. He  forgets  that  one  of  the  old  forms,  by  his  own  stricture,  (p.  55,)  was  to  pay 
"  little  regard  to  the  ordinary  rules  of  evidence." 


498  NOTES. 

were,  as  stated,  and  if  the  materials  he  had  to  operate  upon  were  as 
cross-grained,  as  I  am  sure  they  were,  I  should  be  rather  disposed  to 
judge  his  character  by  the  testimony  of  New-York  and  Virginia,  than  by 
that  of  Puritanical  Massachusetts. 

NOTE  94,  p.  244. 
I  have  hinted  that  something  might  be  expected  from  me,  to  show 
that  the  Puritans,  "  for  all  their  poverties,"  as  Capt.  Smith  says,  were 
quite  as  much  given  to  the  fashions  of  the  world,  as  some  of  far  humbler 
pretensions  than  they  made — such  pretensions,  e.  g.,  as  John  Higginson's, 
about  being  a  member  of  the  purest  among  pure  churches. 

I  am  told  that  some  who  have  examined  the  exuvia  Puritanica,  at 
the  museum  of  the  Antiquarian  Society  at  Worcester,  Mass.,  have  looked 
on,  mute  with  wonder,  to  find  the  Puritans  guilty  of  so  much  external 
splendor.  I  should  expect  to  find  such  splendor  there  ;  for  so  early  as 
1634,  according  to  Mr.  Felt,  their  devotion  to  "  new  and  immodest  fash- 
ions" became  intolerable,  and  a  subject  for  legislation.  (Felt's  Salem,  pp. 
70,  71.)  Accordingly,  all  the  canonical  thunder  which  could  be  mustered 
was  discharged  "  at  the  ordinary,  [mark,  reader,  it  was  every -day  fashions 
which  were  to  be  laid  aside — on  Sunday,  I  beg  pardon,  on  the  Sabbath, 
I  suppose  they  could  be  worn  still,]  the  ordinary  wearing  of  silver,  gold, 
and  silk  laces,  girdles,  hat-bands,  &c.  Also,  that  no  person,  either  man 
or  woman,  [alas,  the  men  were  in  the  scrape — the  ladies  are  not  always 
the  "  weaker  vessels,"  at  least  on  Puritan  soil,]  shall  make,  or  buy,  any 
slashed  clothes,  other  than  one  slash  in  each  sleeve,  and  another  in  the 
back.  Also,  all  cut  works,  embroidered  or  needle-worked  caps,  bands^ 
and  rayles."  [A  rayl,  or  rail,  old  N.  Bailey  says,  is  a  sort  of  short  cloak 
worn  by  women :  perhaps  what  we  now  call  "  cardinals."]  "  Also,  all 
gold  or  silver  girdles,  hat-bands,  belts,  rufis,  beaver  hats,  are  prohibited  to 
be  bought  and  worn."  Also,  another  discharge  is  made  against  "  im- 
moderate great  sleeves,  slash  apparel,  immoderate  great  rayles,  long 
wings,  &.C." 

And  now,  would  one  believe  that  these  are  the  habits  of  people,  but 
yesterday  feeding  on  parched  corn  and  clams  ?  Why  Broadway  itself,  with 
all  its  gay  and  glittering  stores,  would  hardly  furnish  out  their  wardrobe  i 
And  they  are  so  "  immoderate,"  their  "  wings"  are  so  insufferably  "  long," 
that  even  legislative  violence  has  to  pluck  their  plumes !  But  I  doubt,  I 
gravely  doubt,  after  all,  whether  the  Legislature  with  its  would-be  om- 
nipotence did  much.*     Let  us  see  what  Boston  was,  near  the  close  of 

♦  They  tried  hard  another  time,  in  1651,  and  in  this  way.  "They  declare,  that 
'  intolerable  exceasc  and  bravery  hath  crept  in  upon  us,  and  especially  among  people 


NOTES.  499 

this  same  auspicious  century,  and  when  my  testifier  assures  me  it  enjoyed 
"  the  ft-ee  liberty  of  the  [Puritanic]  Gospel."  "  All  sorts,"  I  must  beg  my 
reader  to  note  the  words,"  All  sorts  of  calicoes,  aligers,  remwalls,  muslin, 
silks  for  clothing  and  linings  ;  [even  linings,  it  seems,  must  be  silk  too  ;]  all 
sorts  of  drugs  proper  for  the  apothecaries,  and  all  sorts  of  spice,  are  ven- 
dible with  us."  (Mass.  Hist.  Coll.,  3d  ser.  vii.  203,  209.)  Also,  "  For 
musk,  bezoar,  pearl,  and  diamond,  I  believe  some  of  them  may  sell  well." 

These  are  the  cool,  calculating  answei-s  of  a  Massachusetts  merchant 
to  his  distant  brother,  who  wanted  to  know  how  to  invest  his  money  for 
a  Boston  cargo.  So  it  seems  a  Puritan  Legislature  could  no  more  keep 
out  fashion  than  it  could  keep  out  heresy  ;  and  that  their  degenerate  con- 
stituents, (of  course  church-members,)  were  seeking  to  perfume  themselves 
with  musk,  and  shine  in  the  diamonds  of  Golconda, 

I  have,  on  another  occasion,  (Note  90,)  shown  that  no  prayers  were 
allowed  at  Puritanic  funerals,  "  lest  it  might  in  time  introduce  the  customs 
of  the  English  Church."  It  is  proper  for  me,  in  this  note,  to  show  what 
was  allowed.  I  quote  Mr.  Felt,  for  so  low  a  date  as  1685.  "  Voted,  that 
some  persons  be  appointed  to  look  to  the  burning  of  the  wine  and  heat- 
ing of  the  cider,  against  the  time  appointed  for  the  funeral.  The  expense 
of  the  occasion  was  £17  19s.,  exclusive  of  clothing  for  the  minister's 
family.  [This  at  even  a  minister's  fiineral,  be  it  remembered  !]*  Among 
the  articles  provided  were  thirty-two  gallons  of  wine,  and  a  larger  quan- 
tity of  cider,  with  one  hundred  and  four  pounds  of  sugar,  [very  dear  ia 

of  mean  conditioo  ;  and  their  utter  detestation  and  dislike,  that  men  of  mean  condi- 
tions and  callings  phould  take  upon  them  the  garb  of  gentlemen,  by  wearing  gold  or 
silver  lace,  or  buttons,  or  points  at  their  knees,  to  walk  in  great  boots,  or  women  of 
the  same  ranke,  to  wear  silk  or  tiffany  hoods  or  scarfs  :  which,  though  allowable  to  per- 
sons of  greater  estates,  or  more  liberal  education,  they  judge  it  intolerable  in  persons  of 
such  like  condition.^  "  They  then  go  on  to  enact,  that  if  worth  two  hundred  pounds, 
or  a  magistrate,  parson,  &c.,  a  man  might  be  a  Puritan  dandy  ;  or  his  wife  and  daugh- 
ters, Puritan  dandizettes.  (See  Coffin's  Newburyport,  p.  55,  and  Holmes's  Annals, 
i.  579  ;  though  Holmes,  ut  modo,  leaves  out  the  worst  parts.) 

What  have  New  Englanders  more  complained  of,  at  the  present  day,  than  the  sup- 
posed intention  of  the  democrats,  to  excite  a  hatred  of  the  poor  against  the  rich  1  We 
now  see,  where  this  hatred  was  first  taught  systematically  to  Americans.  A  more 
detestable  law  than  the  above,  or  one  better  calculated  to  array  the  humbler  classes 
of  society  against  the  richer,  cannot  be  found  in  the  annals  of  despotism.  Yet  such 
a  law  Puritans  sanction,  in  the  height  of  their  glory ;  for  the  next  year  they  had  a 
mint !  Dr.  Holmes  is  mistaken,  in  supposing  the  law  from  Stow's  Chronicle,  an 
example  for  this.  That  did  not,  with  legislative  solemnity,  teach  the  poor  to  hate 
the  wealthy:  it  only  pruned  dandyism  at  large.  It  did  not  teach,  either,  "  an  utter 
detestation  and  dislike"  of  those,  who,  unfortunately  were  not  worth  "  the  true  and 
indifferent  sura  of  two  hundred  pounds." 

*  In  1739,  Mr.  Felt  says,  the  expenses  were  ten  times  greater !  So  then  they 
must  have  consumed  320  gallons  of  wine.  &c. 


500  NOTES. 

those  times,]  and  about  four  dozen  gloves."     (Felt's  Ipswich,  pp.  198, 
199.) 

I  might  go  on  to  show,  what  was  allowed  in  this  way  at  ordinations 
also,  but  perhaps  the  note  is  too  long  already. 

NOTE  95,  p.  244. 

Mention  has  already  been  made,  on  p.  21,  of  the  mission  of  Puritan 
ministers  to  Virginia.  But  Virginia  did  not  want  them,  and  sent  them 
away.  This  was  a  thing  which  President  Quincy,  &c.,  would  earnestly 
defend,  if  done  by  them.  See  now  how  they  viewed  it.  Prelatic  super- 
Btitution  is  one  of  their  hackneyed  themes :  they  accounted  the  awful  in- 
cursion of  Opechancanough  and  his  savages,  as  the  just  punishment  of  the 
irreverent  Episcopal  colony.  It  sent  away  Puritan  ministers,  who  would 
surely  have  stirred  up  a  faction,  "  chusing  rather,"  so  testifies  one  of  the 
purest  of  pure  church-members,  "  the  fellowship  of  their  drunken  com- 
panions, and  a  priest  of  their  own  profession,  who  could  hardly  continue 
so  long  sober,  as  till  he  could  read  them  the  reliques  of  man's  invention 
in  a  common  prayer  book."     (Mass.  Hist.  Coll.,  2d  ser.,  viii.  30,  31.) 

But  it  is  wrong,  very  wrong,  say  my  Puritan  critics,  to  revive  such 
bitter  things — better  cover  them  with  the  mantle  of  oblivion.  Not  to 
say  that  poor  Ap.  Laud  never  yet  received  the  ravellings  of  that  mantle 
from  their  hands,  I  have  merely  to  add,  this  is  an  old  argument,  and  has 
had  an  old  reply.  As  I  have  revived  one  of  the  '*  bitter  things,"  I  will 
revive  the  answer  too,  and  let  the  matter  go. 

"  You  desire,"  say  the  Rhode  Islanders  of  Providence,  in  1722,  to  an 
association  of  Puritan  ministers  of  Massachusetts,  of  all  of  them  per- 
haps, "  that  all  former  injuries  done  by  you  to  us,  may  be  buried  in  obliv- 
ion. We  say,  far  be  it  from  us  to  avenge  ourselves,  or  to  deal  to  you 
as  you  have  dealt  to  us,  but  rather  to  say  with  our  Lord,  Father ,  forgive 
them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do  I  But  if  you  mean  that  we  should 
not  speak  of  former  actions,  done  hurtfully  to  any  man's  person,  we  say 
God  never  called  for  that,  nor  suffered  to  be  so  done  ;  as  witness  Cain, 
Joab,  and  Judas,  which  are  upon  record  to  deter  other  men  from  doing 
the  like."     (Benedict's  Baptists,  i.  471.) 

NOTE  96,  p.  250. 
The  Winthrops  were  a  suspected  race.  There  was  a  book  of  Com- 
mon Prayer  in  the  library  of  one  of  them,  and  it  was  eaten  by  mice  ; 
though  bound  up  with  some  other  books,  which  were  left  untouched. 
(Sav.  Wint.,  ii.  20.)  This  was  a  formidable  disaster,  and  Gov.  Winthrop 
is  obliged  to  put  it  into  his  journal.     No  doubt  it  was  a  sad  thing,  to  own 


NOTES.  501 

such  a  doleful  volume,  and  so  he  must  record  Heaven's  judgment  against 
it,  to  save  his  own  reputation.  But  we  may  content  ourselves  with  Mr. 
Savage's  better  than  German  criticism  :  "  If  the  cat  had  been  in  Win- 
throp's  library,  she  might  have  prevented  the  stigma  on  the  common 
prayer." 

NOTE  97,  p.  255. 
I  have  made  no  search  for  the  presents  given  to  Endicott.  While 
looking  for  other  things,  I  have  accidentally  noticed,  that  Massachusetts 
gave  him  the  amount  of  a  splendid  plantation,  more  than  1300  acres  of 
land — sold  him  another  of  1000  acres,  for  some  eighteen  pence  an  acre 
— pensioned  his  widow,  and  endowed  his  son.  This,  surely,  among  a 
people  who  counted  pennies,  evinced  a  very  rich  estimation  of  him.  (See 
Felt's  Salem,  pp.  57,  120,  179,  195,  206,  211,  239.) 

NOTE  98,  p,  258. 

This  boring  the  tongue  with  a  red-hot  iron,  whether  actually  inflicted 
by  Massachusetts  or  not,  was  certainly  a  favorite  idea  of  hers.  As  late  as 
1697,  in  the  act  against  Socinianism,  and  denial  of  the  full  canon  of 
Scripture,  it  is  decreed  as  one  of  the  punishments.  Had  it  been  decreed 
a  century  later,  Mr.  Bancroft  might  have  been  bored,  most  effectually,  by 
his  new  foster-children,  the  Calvinists.  (See  foot  note  in  Letter  XH,  p. 
245,  noticing  his  alterations  of  his  first  edition.) 

There  is  a  peculiarity  in  the  orthography  of  the  old  act.  (See  Acts 
and  Laws  of  Mass.  1726,  p.  88.)  It  says  "  boaring  thorow  the  tongue  ;" 
which  I  supposed  was  intended  to  mean,  what  we  should  by  "  through 
the  tongue."  But  on  p.  137,  for  exaniple,  of  the  same  volume,  I  twice 
find  "  through"  spelt  as  we  now  spell  it.  I  am  constrained,  therefore,  to 
confess  with  a  shudder,  that  it  seems  designed  to  amount  to  "  thorough," 
or  "  thoroughly." 

NOTE  99,  p.  259. 

There  were  but  four  actually  put  to  death.  But  what  was  the  wel- 
come of  Chalkley,  the  Quaker,  when  he  ventured  to  travel  in  New  Eng- 
land as  late  as  1693  1  "  Oh  what  a  pity  that  all  your  society  were  not 
hanged  with  the  other  four."  (Gough's  Quakers,  i.  494.)  The  case  is 
too  desperate  even  for  Mr.  |Bacon,  though  Mr.  Bancroft  endeavors  to 
give  it  a  serene  look.  He  confesses  that  Connecticut,  like  Massachusetts, 
indulged  in  "  branding,  whipping,  and  fining  ;"  and  then  enforces  him- 
self and  adds,  "  I  doubt  not  that  if  these  penalties  had  not  kept  their  coasts 
clear  from  such  invaders,  they  would  have  proceeded  to  hanging."  (Hist. 
22* 


502  NOTES. 

Discourses,  p.  99.)  Who  can  be  surprised,  therefore,  at  the  sharp  lan- 
guage of  the  authors  of  the  Europ.  Settlements :  "  This  people,  who  in 
England  could  not  bear  being  chastised  with  rods,  had  no  sooner  got  free 
from  their  fetters,  than  they  scourged  their  fellow-refugees  with  scorpi- 
ons." (E.  Sett.  ii.  146.)  But,  let  us  remember,  the  book  just  quoted  is  one 
at  which  Mr.  Young  flouts,  for  what  he  calls  its  contemptible  sneers. 
(Chronicles,  p.  48,  notes.)  A  book  of  facts  laughs  at  such  pop-gun 
artillery. 

NOTE  100,  p.  263. 

The  Propagation  Society  was  founded  in  1700,  (See  Humphrey's  Hist. 
Account,)  while  Missionary  Societies  which  have  been  founded  since 
1800,  have  been  looked  upon  as  novelties  in  religious  history,  and  have 
received  applause  without  bounds.     But  they  happen  to  be  non- Episcopal. 

Episcopalians  have  probably  one  of  the  oldest  charitable  societies  in 
North  America  ;  but  for  all  that,  they  have  been  supposed  to  be  neglect- 
ful of  alms-giving,  because  they  did  not  attend  to  it  in  the  society- 
fashion,  and  publish  lists  of  their  benefactions.  Yet  the  Episcopal  Char- 
itable Society  of  Boston  dates  from  1724.  (See  Rev.  Dr.  Boyle's  Hist. 
Memoir,  1840.)  And  what  is  very  curious,  a  Puritan  governor  of  Mas- 
sachusetts, when  it  wanted  a  Charter  after  the  Revolution,  objected  to 
giving  one,  because  an  annual  meeting  was  named  for  "  Easter  Tuesday." 
He  had  no  objection  to  their  meeting  on  any  day  of  the  year  they  pleased, 
but  they  must  not  call  their  days  by  such  Popish  or  heathenish  names. 
I  have  this  anecdote  from  an  aged  friend,  living  at  the  time  upon  the 
spot.  Thus  we  see  how  Puritanism,  even  among  the  most  intelligent, 
waged  war  upon  her,  for  the  smallest  minutiae,  and  to  the  very  last. 

NOTE  101,  p.  264.  (Last  line  but  one  of  the  foot  notes.) 
Bogue  and  Bennett,  in  their  History  of  Dissenters,  seemed  to  look 
upon  King  William  as  founding  this  Society  with  mere  sectarian  mo- 
tives. (Diss.  ii.  334.)  It  is  well  known  that  one  of  the  nicknames  given 
the  Society  was,  "  The  Society  for  propagating  Episcopacy  in  foreign 
parts."  But  the  society  sent  missionaries  here,  at  the  urgent  request  of 
the  people  :  it  was  any  thing  but  obtrusive.  (Humphrey's  Account,  pp. 
44,  45.)  Yet  so  it  is.  In  the  first  place.  Episcopalians  are  said  to  be 
mere  formalists,  more  dead  than  alive,  who  have  no  religion  themselves, 
and  care  not  to  see  any  in  others.  And  when  they  do  send  missionaries 
— oh,  you  are  intrusive  busybodies,  who  want  to  build  yourselves  up,  and 
pull  Congregationalists  down.  Thus  it  was  of  old  :  "  We  have  piped 
unto  you,  but  ye  have  not  danced  ;  we  have  mourned  unto  you,  and  ye 
have  not  lamented." 


NOTES.  503 

NOTE  102,  p.  266. 
The  number  which  perished  on  the  ocean,  or  by  disease,  amid  their 
attempts  to  obtain  Holy  Orders,  is  stated  by  a  writer  in  the  Gentleman's 
Magazine,  as  a  very  large  proportion.  The  volume  I  cannot  now  refer 
to  ;  but  perhaps  the  index  to  the  volumes  between  1760  and  1770  will 
enable  a  curious  inquirer  to  satisfy  himself. 

NOTE  103,  p.  267. 

The  following  is  the  communication  to  which  allusion  is  here  made. 
It  may  be  found  in  the  Churchman  for  Sept.  13,  1834. 

"  Queen  Anne  died  in  August,  1714.  She  was  a  fast  friend  to  the 
Propagation  Society,  and  always  ready  to  sustain  and  carry  out  its  be- 
nevolent plans.  Toward  the  close  of  her  reign,  the  patrons  of  the  society 
became  persuaded,  as  well  from  considerations  of  high  expediency,  as 
from  a  true  zeal  for  the  primitive  organization  of  the  Church,  that  the 
ecclesiastical  establishments  in  the  colonies  should  be  perfected  by  the 
appointment  of  colonial  bishops.  A  plan,  some  details  of  which  may  be 
found  in  Greenwood's  Hist,  of  King's  Chapel,  Boston,  pp.  78-82,  was 
drawn  up  about  1714,  and  wanted  but  the  ready  co-operation  of  the 
Queen  to  become  a  reality.  According  to  this  plan,  there  were  to  be 
four  bishops,  with  salaries  from  £1000  to  £1500  ;  two  for  the  West  In- 
dies, and  two  for  the  Continent.  Death  frustrated  the  intentions  of  her 
Majesty,  and  blighted  the  hopes  of  many  hearty  advocates  for  Episcopacy. 

"  But  the  plan  was  not  forgotten.  It  was  not  likely  it  would  be. 
Episcopacy  was  growing  fast  in  the  Colonies,  and  even  in  1714,  says 
Mr.  Greenwood,  the  Propagation  Society,  in  the  prosecution  of  their 
scheme  for  colonial  bishops,  '  were  warmly  seconded  by  the  congrega- 
tion of  the  Chapel.'  Efforts  were  accordingly  repeated  in  the  reign  of 
George  I.,  which  might  have  resulted  favorably,  had  not  the  king  been  a 
German,  and  been  more  solicitous  about  Hanover  than  America.  How- 
ever, notwithstanding  Germany  occupied  the  place  next  home  in  his 
Majesty's  regard,  the  friends  of  the  Colonies,  (at  the  time  to  which  I 
wish  more  particularly  to  allude,  the  winter  of  1724-5,)  were  considera- 
bly cheered.  The  mission  of  a  bishop  to  New  England  became  a  topic 
of  frequent  mention. 

"  Did  the  Puritan  Independents  hear  nothing  of  this  ?  That  is  not  at 
all  probable.  Would  they  hear  it  quietly  ]  That  is  as  little  probable. 
Well,  then,  what  did  they  do  1  Why  it  had  been  customary  for  them  to 
have  a  convention  of  their  ministers  yearly,  as  they  have  in  Boston  to 
this  day.  It  was  proposed  in  a  Memorial  to  the  Legislature,  by  one 
who  wa»  no  bad  shot  at  a  guess,  (Cotton  Mather,  of  Magnalian  memory,) 


K 


504  NOTES. 

to  call  in  1724  a  muck  larger  convention  than  usual,  that  they  might 
ascertain, '  What  are  the  miscarriages  whereof  we  have  reason  to  think 
the  judgments  of  Heaven  upon  us  call  us  to  be  more  generally  sensible, 
and  what  may  be  the  most  evangelical  and  effectual  expedients  to  put 
a  stop  unto  those  or  the  like  miscarriages.'  (Hutchinson's  Mass.,  3d 
edit.  ii.  292,  note.) 

"  What  was  the  real  object  on  which  the  Herculean  energies  of  this 
Synod  were  to  work  1  The  manufacture  of  an  ecclesiastical  platform  1 
They  had  one  already  :  the  Confession  of  1680.  To  tinker  on  the  old 
one  1  They  were  not  infested  with  the  creed-hating  mania,  which  has 
spread  so  contagiously  in  our  day.  No  :  Hutchinson  himself  testifies 
to  the  affection  of  many  for  the  old  platform,  and  even  offers  this  as  a 
plausible  extenuation  of  the  designs  for  a  synod.  What  then  was  the 
nodus  of  this  imposing  scheme  ]  Some  precious  morceaux  of  the  ec- 
clesiastical history  of  Massachusetts,  preserved  in  the  letters  of  Dr.  Cut- 
ler, Mr.  John  Checkley,  and  extracts  from  newspapers,  and  which  may 
be  found  in  the  fourth  volume  of  Nichols's  Literary  Illustrations,  p.  268, 
et.  seq.,  can  I  think  give  it  to  us.  From  these,  and  from  Gov.  Dummer's 
letter  of  1st  Sept.,  1725,  (for  which  see  Hutch.  Hist.  ii.  292,)  the  desired 
solution  can  be  made  out.  (Compare  Douglass's  Summary,  i.  440,  No. 
6.— Tudor's  Otis,  pp.  499,  500.) 

"  It  seems  that  the  proposed  Synod  attracted  the  attention  of  Episco- 
palians, who  were  hoping,  with  encouragement,  for  the  appearance  of  a 
bishop.  This  could  hardly  have  been,  had  they  not  apprehended  from 
it  all  possible  interference  with  their  plans  for  the  establishment  of  an 
American  Episcopate  ;  and  how  much  this  possibility  might  have  includ- 
ed, it  is  not  very  hard  to  conjecture,  when  we  know  that  Mather  was  a 
presiding  genius  in  the  councils  of  Congregationalism.  Well  knowing, 
or  justly  fearing  the  effects  of  the  Synod,  it  was  of  course  a  primary  ob- 
ject with  the  Churchmen  of  Boston,  to  obtain  some  authentic  document 
in  relation  to  it,  and  see  (so  far  as  might  be)  what  was  proposed  for  its 
consideration.  It  is  not  a  little  remarkable  that  the  memorial  of 
Mather,  in  the  name  of  his  associates,  had  hitherto  been  kept  carefully 
out  of  sight.  News,  indeed,  of  the  desire  for  a  Synod  had,  somehow  or 
other  (not  officially)  reached  England  ;    and  so  severe  a  rebuke*  had 

*  This  rebuke  was  perfectly  justifiable,  according  to  the  Church  Polity  of  the 
Puritan  Hooker.  "  And  the  same  power  he  [the  supreme  magistrate]  hath,  to  con- 
fine his  own  people  from  such  general  assemblings,  within  his  own  precincts." 

Hooker's  survey  of  the  Summe  of  Ch.  Discipline,  Pt.  iT.  p.  58. — In  this  point,  as 
might  be  expected,  Hooker  agrees  with  the  Pope :  the  Puritan- Protestant  and  the 
Puritan-Papist  assimilatinj  as  utual.— See  Ward's  Law  of  Nations,  ii.  103, 104 


NOTES.  505 

come  back,  that  the  curiosity  of  Episcopalians  in  Boston  was  still  more 
whetted,  to  see  what  treason  there  might  be  in  the  schemes  of  the 
enemy.  They  wanted  to  read  the  memorial  praying  for  a  Synod  ;  or 
rather  one  good  honest  member  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  who 
heard  the  rebuke  alluded  to,  wanted  to  do  so,  (whether  Churchman 
or  not,  it  is  not  said,  but  the  presumption  is  strong  he  was  one,)  and  he 
accordingly  went  to  the  Secretary  of  State,  and  procured  a  copy  of  it. 
This  copy  he  presented  to  Checkley,  who  transcribed  it,  and  it  was  soon 
in  many  hands. 

"  This  is  a  very  simple  matter,  truly  :  going  to  the  archives  of  the  State 
to  procure  the  copy  of  a  document,  which  had  never  been  acted  on  in  secret 
conclave — never  been  pronounced  a  matter  of  privacy,  and  never  intrusted 
to  the  Secretary  with  prohibitions  as  to  loaning  it  to  unworthy  eyes.  But 
the  consequences  were  not  quite  so  simple.  The  poor  wight  who  went 
to  the  Secretary,  soon  finds  a  mittimus  at  his  heels — is  not  even  permitted 
to  see  this  mittimus — is  accused  of  stealing  the  memorial — is  denied 
counsel — is  refused  a  hearing  at  the  bar  of  the  House  of  which  he  is  a 
blameless  member — and  finally  is  ignominiously  expelled  that  House, 
with  the  brand  of  a  liar  and  peace-disturber  upon  his  hitherto  unsullied 
name.  Nay,  the  list  of  grievances  is  not  ended  here.  The  unfortunate 
Secretary,  who  thought  he  was  selling  a  piece  of  paper,  and  not  double- 
battled  gunpowder,  when  he  delivered  the  copy  of  the  memorial  and  put 
his  ten  shillings  in  his  fob,  finds  his  house  about  his  ears,  and  himself 
Secretary  no  more,  with  an  expedition  bordering  on  the  marvellous. 

"  Much  more  might  be  said  conceruing  this  once  famous  memorial — the 
efforts  to  keep  it  away  from  all  who  did  not  understand,  what  Papists  call 
"the  discipline  of  the  secret" — and  the  punishment  of  those  who  made 
too  free  with  its  cabalistic  words.  But  enough  has  been  said,  if  it  induces 
any  to  think  of  and  look  into  the  past  of  our  Church  History,  with  a  little 
of  that  curiosity  and  interest  they  so  well  deserve  and  will  so  richly  reward. 
Much  has  been  said,  much  is  still  said,  about  the  tyranny  of  Bishops  and 
the  intolerance  of  Churchmen.  I  would  submissively  take  and  patiently 
bear  all  just  reproach  ;  but  would  also  bid  our  censurers  beware,  ere  they 
assail  our  escutcheon,  to  look  well  to  their  own.  There  may  be  other 
little  spots  in  the  track  of  their  story  ;  which,  like  the  one  just  alluded  to, 
will  hardly  be  as  refreshing  if  brought  to  view,  as  an  oasis  to  a  traveller  in 
the  desert." 

This,  with  a  few  verbal  alterations,  was  written  in  Sept.  1834,  and  when 
I  had  not  the  remotest  expectation  that  it  would  be  followed  by  a  series 
of  letters  in  the  year  following,  and  a  book  in  1845. 


506  NOTES. 

NOTE  104,  p.  269. 

Much  might  be  said  here  about  Whitfield,  whom  the  Puritans  gladly 
employed,  thinking  he  would  preach  down  the  Church.  (See  Chandler's 
Johnson,  pp.  65,  66.)  But  he  lighted  so  much  wildfire  among  themselves, 
that  many  regretted  they  had  not  let  him  alone.  I  find  even  Mr.  Bacon 
recording  some  of  the  disasters  which  occurred  about  1740,  the  year 
when  Whitfield  made  his  first  appearance  in  New  England.  See  his 
Hist.  Discourses,  pp.  245, 252.  Dr.  Charles  Chauncey,  in  his  "  Seasonable 
Thoughts, "  published  at  Boston  in  1743,  tells  us  a  longer  and  sadder 
story  ;  and,  among  other  things,  informs  us  that  Connecticut  actually 
passed  a  law  restraining  ministers  "  from  preaching  in  other  men's  parishes, 
without  their  and  their  church's  consent,  and  wholly  prohibiting  the  ex- 
hortations of  illiterate  laymen,"  (Seas.  Thoughts,  p.  41.)  Dr.  Cutler, 
Rector  of  Christ  Church,  Boston,  wrote  thus  about  Dr.  Chauncey's  book 
and  the  times,  to  Dr.  Zachary  Grey,  one  of  the  castigators  of  Neal.  "  The 
author,  Dr.  Chauncey,  told  me  that  he  could  have  printed  more  flagrant 
accounts,  if  his  intelligencers  would  have  allowed  him.  This  has  turned 
to  the  growth  of  the  Church  in  many  places,  and  its  reputation  univer- 
sally." (Nichols's  Lit.  Illustrations,  iv.  304.)  Whitfield's  wildfire  is  not 
the  first,  nor  the  last,  of  such  ecclesiastical  prairie-burnings  of  Congrega- 
tionalism, which  have  driven  many  into  the  fold  of  the  mother  their  fathers 
loved  so  "  dearly."  Cannot  many  of  our  elderly  clergy  in  New  England 
testify  to  a  verification  of  Dr.  Cutler's  experience  in  their  own  parishes  1 

Besides  scenes  such  as  Whitfield  ushered  in,  and  their  results  to  the 
Church,  there  are  multitudes  of  such  cases  as  the  Rev.  Thomas  Davies 
records,  who  was  a  missionary  at  Great  Barrington,  in  Mass.,  in  the  year 
1764.  A  notice  of  his  sermon,  on  Christmas,  1764,  and  a  note  from  him- 
self may  be  found  in  the  Churchman  for  March  17,  1835.  Here  was  a 
case,  where  Churchmen  were  harassed  with  taxes,  rates,  &,c.  &.c.,  and 
by  every  other  possible  means,  to  prevent  their  getting  a  foothold  in  Great 
Barrington.  The  case  is  but  a  parallel  to  many  more  ;  and  is  merely 
alluded  to  for  an  example,  and  to  show  how  the  bitter  spirit  of  the  Puri- 
tans travelled  with  them,  or  was  sent  forth  as  an  emissary.  I  should  not 
have  been  surprised  to  find  Puritans  at  Boston,  or  Salem,  doing  all  they 
could  to  vex  Episcopalians,  But  at  G.  Barrington,  on  the  western  verge 
of  Mass.,  and  in  almost  another  country,  I  should  have  expected  more 
moderation.  But  even  there,  it  seems  to  to  have  lost  none  of  its  sharp- 
ness, but  kept  its  tenor  like  unadulterated  vinegar. 


NOTES.  507 

NOTE  105,  p.  270. 

Such  tattlers  as  Whitfield,  who  pretended  to  let  two  congregational 
ministers  know  half  of  a  scheme  to  oppress  America  in  1764,  and  en- 
joined secrecy  upon  them  with  such  peculiar  earnestness,  that  one  of 
them  soon  after  committed  the  secret  to  a  public  sermon,  delivered  before 
a  clerical  convention, — such  tattlers  and  fire-kindiers,  rather  than  Epis- 
copacy, brought  on  the  Revolution. 

It  is  a  principle  of  Episcopacy,  never  to  force  a  bishop's  ordination  or 
mission.  "  A  bishop,  by  the  rules  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  must  be  thoroughly 
examined  and  peaceably  ordained,  by  such  as  shall  impose  hands  on  him  ; 
and  not  peremptorily  intruded,  or  imposed,  by  any  earthly  power." 
(Bilson's  Ch.  Gov.,  new  ed.,  p.  476.)  The  British  Government  would  not 
have  obtruded  a  bishop  upon  the  Puritans,  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  : 
they  would  have  sent  him  to,  and /or.  Episcopalians  only.  Dr.  Chandler 
wrote  to  explain  the  views  and  wishes  of  Churchmen  upon  this  subject, 
and  to  correct  misrepresentations.  He  wrote,  too,  as  expressing  the  views 
and  feelings  of  Churchmen  generally.  (Chandlers  Johnson,  pp.  114, 
115.)  Let  him,  or  a  dozen  like  him,  howeyer,  have  done  their  best,  one 
such  inflammatory  effort  as  Whitfield's — a  man,  too,  with  the  unrevoked 
vows  of  the  Church  of  England  upon  his  soul — could  have  brought  their 
best  exertions  to  none  effect.  The  anecdote  of  Whitfield  alluded  to,  may 
be  found  in  Gordon's  Amer.  Rev.  i,  143,  144  ;  and  is  one  melancholy 
illustration,  among  a  thousand,  that  the  highest  pretensions  to  piety  are 
consistent  with  the  dereliction  of  principles  voluntarily  assumed.  *  A 
politician  may  not  be  unfaithful  to  a  party,  without  peril  to  his  reputa- 
tion ;  but  a  clergyman  may  show  all  possible  nonconformity  to  a  system, 
which  he  has  freely  before  God  and  man  professed,  and  he  will  be  thought 
by  many  to  know  more  of  the  religion  of  the  heart  than  the  man  who 
keeps  his  vows.  It  is  one  of  this  world's  mysteries.  A  soldier  or  a  sailor 
untrue  to  the  articles  of  war,  is  thought  a  traitor.  A  minister,  whose 
vows  are  freely  taken,  may  be  untrue  to  the  regulations  of  his  Church, 
and  he  is  pious  par  excellence  ;  as  though  treason  against  a  creed  or  a 
canon  were  fidelity  to  Christ !  t 

*  This  may  seem  hard,  but  when  we  know,  by  Whitfield's  own  letters,  (see 
Christian  Remembrancer,  iv.  5*90,)  that  he  would  not  so  much  as  come  to  Ameri- 
ca without  his  bishop's  permission,  and  then  that  as  soon  as  he  got  here  he  set  all 
church  law  and  order  at  defiance,  it  will  appear  no  ways  excessive. 

I  I  may  be  pardoned  perhaps,  for  speaking  thus  upon  this  subject,  when  I  show, 
that  it  is  one  on  which  a  bare  sense  of  honor  can  make  even  an  Infidel  truly  moral. 
"  Ought  any  man,"  says  Hume  himself,  rebuking  Puritan  laxity  upon  this  matter, 
"  to  accept  of  an  office  or  benefice  in  an  establishment,  while  he  declines  compli- 
ance with  the  fixed  aod  known  rules  o{  that  establishment?"    (Hist,  of  Eng.  N.  Y- 


508  NOTES. 

NOTE  106,  p.  272. 

The  cause  of  the  American  Revolution  is  candidly  and  exactly  stated 
by  Dr.  John  J.  Zubly,  a  Presbyterian  minister  at  Savannah,  Georgia,  in 
a  sermon  published  by  him  in  1775,  before  the  Revolution  began.  Zubly, 
according  to  Gordon,  was  the  principal  agent  "  who  roused  the  attention 
of  many  in  the  province,  to  the  alarming  situation  of  American  affairs." 
(Amer.  Rev.  ii.  75.)  This  is  his  voluntary  testimony.  "  The  question 
between  Great  Britain  and  America,  which  has  already  been  productive 
of  such  alarming  effects,  is,  '  Whether  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain 
have  any  power  or  authority  to  tax  the  Americans,  without  their  con- 
sent ?'  Every  impartial  man  will  allow,  that  this  is  the  foundation  of  the 
tchole  dispute."     (Zubly's  Sermon,  p.  28.)  * 

This  covers  the  entire  debateable  ground  ;  and  coming  from  an  intel- 
ligent Presbyterian,  ought  to  be  considered  as  relieving  Episcopacy  from 
any  responsibility  in  the  premises. 

Boucher,  in  his  Discourses,  declares  that  Episcopacy  was  little  cared 
for  in  itself,  but  was  made  a  stalking-horse  by  politicians.  "  It  by  no 
means  follows  that  Episcopacy  was  thus  opposed,  from  its  haN-ing  been 
thought  by  these  transatlantic  oppositionists  as  in  any  respect  in  itself 
proper  to  be  opposed  ;  but  it  ser\ed  to  keep  the  public  mind  in  a  state  of 
ferment  and  effervescence  ;  to  make  them  jealous  and  suspicious  of  all 
measures  not  brought  forward  by  demagogues,  and,  above  all,  to  train  and 
habituate  the  people  to  opposition."  That  in  this  way,  without  its  being 
♦'  apparent  at  the  time,"  politicians  made  it  a  cause  of  political  agitation, 
he  admits.  (Discourses,  pp.  149,  150.)  But  is  this  strange,  when  Pow- 
nall,  in  his  4th  edition  of  his  work  on  the  Colonies,  published  in  1768, 
talks  of  "  the  mother  country  and  her  colonies,  misrepresented  to  and  mis- 
informed of  each  other  ?"  (Pownall,  p.  29.)  In  his  sermon  on  the  Ame- 
rican Episcopate,  delivered  at  St.  Mary's  Ch.,  Caroline  Co.,  Virginia,  in 
1771,  Boucher  distinctly  and  solemnly  declared,  "All  that  has  been  or 
will  be  solicited  by  ns,  is  a  primitive  bishop  :  a  bishop  without  power  of 

and  Boston,  1810,  vol.  v.  p.  172.)  O  intolerable,  that  an  avowed  unbeliever  should 
be  teaching  moral  obligations  to  professed  ministers  of  the  Gospel  I  It  may  answer 
for  a  heathen  to  say,  as  Hippolytus  in  Euripides,  "  My  tongue  hath  sworn  :  my 
mind  is  still  unsworn."  It  may  do  for  a  Jesuit,  or  a  Puritan,  to  swear  with  mental 
reservations  ;  but  against  all  such  swearing,  let  every  honest  man  be  a  Protestant 
iodeed. 

I  mix  up  the  Puritans  and  the  Jesuiu.  How  can  I  help  it,  when  I  remember 
the  letter  from  the  Arabella,  and  Pres.  Q,uincy's  tesiimoaies  to  their  duplicity  .' — 
Hisu  Harv.  Univ.  i  91,  136,  156,  351. 

*  Compare  the  New  York  declaration  of  rights  in  Stone's  Brant,  i.  35.— Otis's 
Botta,  i.  78, 79.    Bradford's  Massachusetts,  p.  102,  etc 


NOTES.  509 

any  kind,  excepting  in  what  relates  to  the  clergy."  (Disc.  p.  139.)  And 
this  sentiment  had  been  just  as  distinctly  maintained  by  all  the  Episco- 
palians at  the  north  ;  and  all  Dr.  Chauncey's  arguments  from  gossip  and 
hearsay  amounted  to  nothing,  against  the  explicit  averments  of  Dr. 
Chandler  in  the  name  of  the  whole  Episcopal  community. 

See  Chandler's  Johnson,  pp.  114,  115,  116.  Also  Eddis's  Letters, 
p.  50,  from  which  it  appears,  that  Episcopalians  themselves  at  the  South 
(though  they,  as  he  says,  "  greatly  exceed  those  of  all  other  denomina- 
tions,") were  made  as  hostile  to  the  introduction  of  a  bishop,  as  their 
neighbors.  Surely  politicians  must  have  been  very  busy,  to  make 
Churchmen  so  unfriendly  to  a  part  of  their  own  system.  If  the  world 
had  let  the  Church  alone,  all  would  have  gone  on  quietly  and  well.  To 
make  her  contend  against  herself,  and  then  blame  her  for  the  contention, 
may  be  agreeable  to  "  the  spirit  of  the  world  ;"  and  to  be  condemned  by 
such  a  spirit  is  not  very  discomposing. 

NOTE  107,  p.  275. 

Puritanism  refused  to  bury  Chillingworth's  body,  because  he  was  an 
Episcopalian  ;  but  it  buried  his  immortal  book  in  behalf  of  Protestantism,* 
and  that  with  one  of  its  deepest  anathemas.  Cheynell,  the  Puritan  min- 
ister at  Chichester,  where  Chillingworth  died  in  1644,  refused  to  bury 
him,  but  threw  his  book  into  his  grave  with  the  following  anathema, 
and  then  went  away  and  preached  forthwith  from  the  text,  "  Let  the 
dead  bury  their  dead,"  &c.  (Luke  ix.  60) :  "  Get  thee  gone,  thou  cursed 
booke,  which  has  seduced  so  many  precious  souls  ;  get  thee  gone,  thou  cor- 
rupt, rotten  booke,  earth  to  earth  and  dust  to  dust ;  get  thee  gone  into  the 
place  of  rottennesse,  that  thou  maist  rot  with  thy  author  and  see  corrup- 
tion." (SeeBiog.  Universelle,  viii.  371,  and  Christian  Disciple  for  1819, 
p.  343  :  published  at  Boston.) 

I  cannot  forbear  adding,  that  Chillingworth,  one  of  the  most  earnest 
champions  for  Protestantism  ever  known,  was  brought  back  from  Roman- 
ism mainly  under  the  instrumentality  of  William  Laud,  so  often  accused 
of  being  a  Papist  himself.  And  also,  to  show  Laud's  true  conscientious- 
ness and  devotion  to  his  duties  as  a  Churchman,  that  his  pecuUar  interest 
in  Chillingworth,  personally,  was  owing  to  the  fact  that  he  was  his  god- 
father. Though  Chillingworth  had  reached  manhood,  and  had  probably 
long  before  been  confirmed.  Laud  could  not  and  would  not  forget  his  spiritual 

*  Chillingworth,  though  his  book  is  now  considered  one  of  the  strongest  bul- 
warks of  Proteslantism,  died,  in  the  opinion  of  Puritanism,  "  a  desperate,  apostate 
Papist."  (Le  Bas's  Laud,  p.  242.)  If  justice  is  at  last  done  to  his  name,  may  we 
hope  that  the  time  will  come,  when  not  less  justice  will  be  done  to  Archbishop 
Laud 'a .' 


510  NOTES. 

child,  or  let  him  go.  The  letters  which  passed  between  Laud  and  Chil- 
lingworth,  would  probably  do  unbounded  credit  to  the  heads  and  hearts  of 
both,  but  they  have  perished.  The  Puritans  doubtless  destroyed  them, 
when  they  seized  Laud's  papers  ;  for  he  appeals  to  these  very  letters  in 
his  Defence,  as  in  their  possession,  to  show  his  instrumentality  in  Chil- 
lingworth's  conversion.  (See  Laud's  Troubles,  pref.  p.  vii.  and  p.  227. 
Wood's  Ath.  Ox.  ii.  41,  42.  Gen.  Biog.  Diet,  folio,  iv.  317.  Le  Bas's 
Laud,  chap.  vii.  or  pp.  241,242,  Eng.  edit.) 

NOTE  108,  p.  276. 

Churchmen  are  often  blamed  for  their  uncharitableness  towards  their 
"  dissenting  brethren  ;"  because,  it  is  said,  the  differences  which  separate 
them  by  no  means  touch  the  essentials  of  Christianity — in  fact,  are  mere 
trifles.  And  why,  it  is  asked,  are  they  excluded  from  our  pulpits,  <fec., 
&,e.,  for  such  things  ? 

This  is  an  old  argument,  and  I  like  to  give  it  its  old  answer  ;  especially 
as  I  can  do  so  from  one  of  my  "  truly  gracious"  Presbyterian  authors. — 
"  If,"  says  Mr.  Edwards  to  the  Puritan  Independents,  in  his  reply  to  their 
Manifesto,  "  If  so  be,  that  you  differ  so  Uttle  from  the  Reformed  Churches, 
and  your  brethren — Why  do  you  not  then  incorporate  with  us  1  Why 
will  you,  or  how  can  you  answer  it  to  God,  for  that  to  make  a  rent?" — 
And  a  little  further  on,  he  lays  down  an  ecclesiastical  maxim,  worthy  the 
days  of  the  apostolic  fathers:  "  The  smaller  the  difference  is,  the  greater 
is  the  schism  and  separation ;  for  the  less  the  cause  of  a  separation  is, 
the  greater  the  fault  is  in  those  that  make  it."  I  most  earnestly  and 
affectionately  commend  this  sound  Presbyterian  doctrine  to  those,  who, 
for  mere  matters  of  form,  external  trifles,  have  forsaken  the  communion  of 
their  "  dear  mother,  the  Church  of  England."*  (See  Edwards's  Antapo- 
logia,  p.  269,  for  the  quotations.  The  Antapologia,  it  may  be  well  enough 
to  say,  bears  the  date  of  1644.) 

NOTE  109,  p.  280. 
If  Mr.  Choules  can  commune  with  them  about  sentiments,  ought  he 
not  to  do  so  in  sacraments  1  On  the  contrary,  does  he  esteem  their  sacra- 
ments so  worthless  that  he  would  rebaptize  their  members,  and,  if  as  con- 
sistent as  his  brethren  of  old,  (see  Benedict's  Baptists,  i.  286,)  reordain 
their  ministers  ?  And  is  it  not  somewhat  worse  than  "  absurd,"  to  sjmi- 
pathize  with  those  who  persecuted   his   own  sect,  merely  because  they 

*  Compare  their  awfully  solemn  protestation  to  Charles  II.,  that  they  did  not 
leave  England  "  in  rebellion  or  schism."— Hutchinson's  Collect,  p.  328.— But  this 
was  to  save  the  old  charter ! 


NOTES.  511 

love  the  "apostolic  succession"  as  Jittle  as  he  does?  Mr.  C.  will  not 
consider  this  personal ;  for  he  knows  my  unfeigned  regard  for  him  as  a 
man.  But  he  must  not  expect  me,  however,  to  view  his  own  position 
with  vast  consideration,  when  he  has  caricatured  a  Churchman's  as  an 
"  absurd"  one. 

I  beg  my  readers  to  notice  the  reference  to  Benedict's  history.  It 
shows  that  the  Baptists,  when  true  to  their  own  principles,  must  nullify 
all  orders  but  their  own.  What  indeed  could  be  more  "  absurd,"  than  to 
sanction  Holy  Orders  conferred  by  men,  who  no  more  belonged  to  the 
Christian  Church  than  do  the  remotest  heathen  1  Baptism  is  the  only 
mode  of  admission  to  the  Christian  Church.  But  immersion  is  the  only 
baptism.  Therefore  nearly  all  the,  so  called.  Christian  world  do  not  so 
much  as  belong  to  the  Christian  Church. 

This  is  a  terribly  unchurching  syllogism ;  but  I  see  not  how  any  con- 
sistent Baptist  can  reject  it. 

NOTE  110,  p.  285. 

Hakewill's  Apology  was  written  in  1627,  and  its  character  cannot  be 
better  given  than  in  the  following  opinion  of  Warton,  in  his  edition  of 
Pope's  Works,  iv.  319.  "  They  whom  envy,  malevolence,  melancholy, 
discontent,  and  disappointment,  have  induced  to  think  that  the  world  is 
totally  degenerated,  and  that  it  is  daily  growing  worse  and  worse,  would 
do  well  to  read  a  sensible,  but  too  much  neglected  treatise  of  an  old  divine, 
written  1630,  Hakewill's  Apology,"  &c. 

Dugald  Stuart  (in  his  Works,  vi.  446,  Amer.  ed.)  appears  to  think  that 
Hakewill  was  a  silent  imitator  of  Lord  Bacon,  and  wrote  as  a  mere  phi- 
losopher. I  cannot  divest  myself  of  the  idea,  that  Hakewill's  noble  effort 
was  the  rather  levelled  against  the  hue  and  cry  of  universal  degeneracy, 
raised  by  the  Puritans  as  a  preparation  for  a  revolution  in  Church  and 
State.  For  example,  a  mock  self-disparagement  was  one  of  their  noto- 
rious peculiarities.  But  in  giving  his  reasons  for  writing  he  says,  "  We 
desire  not  to  settle  the  praise  of  humility  on  false  grounds,  lest,  being 
built  upon  falsehood,  it  lose  the  reward  of  truth."*  (Apology.  Lib.  i. 
Chap.  2.  Sect.  1.) 

NOTE  111,  p.  292. 
The  uninformed  may  suppose  these  singular  sentiments  for  a  Church- 
man.   They  are  not  aware,  that  the  legislative  government  of  the  Protest- 
ant Episcopal  Church  in  the  United  States  is  representative  and  repub- 

*  Hakewill  was  not  the  only  philosopher  of  his  day  who  labored  against  the 
follies  of  the  Puritans.    See  Burton's  Anat.  of  Melancholy,  ii.  538,  London,  1826. 


512  NOTES. 

lican,  like  the  government  of  the  Nation.*  The  bishops  form  our  con- 
gressional senate,  and  an  equal  number  of  clergymen  and  laymen  our 
congressional  house  of  representatives.  And  (a  peculiar  feature)  this 
lower  house,  on  all  important  questions,  resolves  itself  into  clergy  and 
laity,  voting  separately  ;  and  a  majority  of  each  order  is  then  necessary 
(i.  e.  a  double  majority)  to  carry  any  measure. 

So  bishops,  clergy,  and  laity,  have  all  equal  rights  ;  and  an  equal 
negative,  each  upon  the  other.  No  measure  can  be  carried,  but  by  the 
joint  consent  of  a  majority  of  all  the  three.  This  ought  to  satisfy  any  re- 
publican, and  any  layman,  who  is  at  all  reasonable. 

It  is  the  ministry  only,  and  the  succession  of  the  ministry,  that 
Churchmen  suppose  to  be  a  divine  and  unchangeable  part  of  Church 
Government.  And  this  succession  appears  to  them  an  exceedingly  sim- 
ple matter.  A  man  who  is  the  ambassador  of  a  higher  power  than  him- 
self, must  receive  his  commission  to  act,  either  mediately  or  immediately, 
from  his  superior  ;  i.  e.  through  this  superior's  own  hands,  or  the  hands  of 
those  who  derived  authority  from  him.  Now  to  receive  a  commission 
immediately  from  God's  own  hands,  would  be  miraculous,  and.  must  be 
proved  by  a  miracle.  To  receive  it  otherwise,  is  to  receive  it  through  a 
line  of  persons  authorized  to  transmit  it ;  the  first  of  whom  received  it 
from  himself.  And  this  is  all  the  way  now  remaining,  unless  we  allow 
miracles.  But  this  is  the  famous  "  apostolic  succession,"  i.  e.  succession 
from  the  apostles  do\^Tiward,  which  to  many  is  such  a  mysterious  or  ter- 
rific conjuration. 

NOTE  112,  p.  294. 
Cotton  was  accused  of  being  instrumental  in^e  banishment  of  Wil- 
liams, and  boldly  denied  the  charge.  But  some  of  the  magistrates  solemnly 
testified,  that  they  voted  against  Williams  "  by  the  advice  and  counsel  of 
Mr.  Cotton."  Well,  reader,  and  do  you  think  he  was  cornered  now  ? 
If  so  you  are  mistaken,  for  this  was  his  reply,  that  "  if  he  did  comisel  one 
or  tico,  it  would  not  argue  the  act  of  the  magistrate."  (Mass.  H.  Coll. 
1st  ser.  viii.  4.)  Oh  no,  certainly  not ;  for  the  Jesuitical  rule  is,  "  We 
must  not  refuse  absolution  to  those  who  live  on  the  confines  of  sin." 
(Pascal's  Prov.  Letters,  No.  5.) 

And  so  when  Rome  counselled  kings  to  put  heretics  to  death,  she  was 
not  guilty:  "it  would  not  argue  the  act  of  the  magistrate."  Who  can 
fail  to  see  the  parallel  in  the  deed,  and  in  the  apology  ;  and  who  can 

*  We  have  also  State  or  Diocesan  conventions,  for  the  immediate  goTemment  of 
a  Sute  or  Diocese,  which  are  more  democratic  still ;  for  in  them  the  Bishop,  Presby- 
ters, and  Laity,  form  but  one  body. 


1 


NOTES,  513 

longer  doubt  that  there  have  been  Jesuits  in  the  disguise  of  Puritans — Pu- 
ritan-Papists as  well  as  Puritan-Protestants  ?  I  should  be  deemed  a 
monster,  probably,  if  I  said  I  thought  Master  Cotton  one  of  these  individ- 
uals ;  and  so,  duly  afraid  of  an  anathema,  shall  be  cautious  about  rash  as- 
sertions. But,  really,  it  is  quite  impossible  for  me  to  say,  how  many  such 
things  as  have  now  been  recorded,  how  many  such  doublings  as  he  showed 
about  the  case  of  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  and  how  many  books  like  the  "  Bloody 
Tenet,"  would  enable  me  to  believe  so  thoroughly. 

NOTE  113,  p.  296. 

Mr.  Knowles,  at  the  page  quoted,*  seems  not  to  comprehend  exactly 
Roger  Williams's  difficulty,  which  constrained  him  to  withdraw  from  par- 
ticipation in  the  Eucharist,  as  administered  by  the  Baptists.  Fortunately, 
in  Gammell's  life  of  Williams,  I  find  his  own  words,  which  enable  me 
to  understand  what  I  was  before  in  doubt  of,  viz.,  the  precise  cause  of  his 
withdrawment  from  visible  communion.  It  was  because  he  believed 
"  the  apostolical  commission  and  ministry  is  long  since  interrupted  and 
discontinued."    (Gammell's  R.  Williams,  p.  200.) 

Now  Williams  was  originally  a  Churchman,  and  would  use  such 
language  as  a  Churchman  might.  To  him,  as  a  Churchman,  the  succes- 
sion in  the  ministry  was  no  novelty.  As  it  was  with  Robinson,  his 
church  views  and  feelings  revived  in  his  later  years.  He  could  not  find 
the  apostolic  succession  about  him,  (no  phenomenon  to  us!)  and  so  he 
thought  it  gone,  and  that  there  could  be  no  ministry  but  a  miraculous 
one,  viz.,  of  inspired  witnesses  and  prophets.  It  is  no  small  consolation 
to  think,  that  both  Robinson  and  Williams  came  nearer  to  the  Church 
of  England,  the  nearer  they  came  to  their  graves.  The  latter  gave, 
what  few  would  have  the  honesty  to  do,  practical  proof  of  a  conviction 
that  the  "  apostolic  succession "  is  gone  :  he  acknowledged  no  ministry 
and  no  ordinances  whatever,  i.  e.  none  of  those  in  his  vicinity. 

Because  Williams  was  immersed  by  Hoiliman,  Mr.  Knowles  gives 
us,  singularly  enough,  a  homily  on  the  validity  of  lay-baptism  !  (Knowles's 
R.  Williams,  p.  166,  etc.)  Would  that  it  were  as  easy  for  the  Baptists 
to  imitate  him,  in  his  thorough  conviction  of  the  necessity  of  an  apostolic 
succession  for  the  ministry. 

NOTE  114,  p.  298. 
On  more  than  one  occasion,  I  have  censured  Mr.  Bancroft  for  disin- 
genuous changes  from  his  first  edition  of  his  United  States.     I  have  now 

*  On  pp.  171,  172, 173,  he  is  clearer ;  but  nothing  he  gives  is  so  plain"  as  the 
quotation  by  Gammell.  He  might  have  noticed  that,  for  it  is  on  his  own  pages. 
See  p.  377. 


514  NOTES. 

to  record  a  change,  for  which  I  must  forgive  him  some  of  his  sins  ; 
though  I  cannot  free  him  from  penance  altogether. 

In  his  first  edition,  i.  493,  and  in  his  seventh,  i.  454,  he  sneers  at 
Laud,  to  be  sure  ;  but  he  does  go  so  venturously  far,  takes  such  a  pro- 
found leap  in  condescension,  as  to  allow  his  honesty.  And,  moreover, 
he  does  not  flinch  from  this  vast  admission. 

But  in  his  first  edition,  i.  487,  he  makes  a  concession  about  the 
honesty  of  Puritan  parsons,  which,  in  his  seventh,  i.  449,  he  takes  back  ! ! 
The  sentences  are  a  curiosity  for  a  Churchman,  and  I  must  quote  them 
both.  "  But  the  people  did  not  entirely  respond  to  these  extravagant 
views,  into  which  personal  interest,  combined  with  honest  bigotry,  had 
betrayed  the  elders."  Now  for  the  change  retrograde,  in  his  view  of 
Puritan  honesty.  "  But  the  people  did  not  entirely  respond  to  these  ex- 
travagant views,  into  which  the  bigotry  of  personal  interest  had  betrayed 
the  elders." 

So  the  honesty  of  Laud  continues,  while  that  of  Puritan  parsons 
vanishes  away !  On  the  whole,  the  most  severe  penance  I  would  inflict 
on  Mr.  B.  would  be,  that  henceforward  he  stick  to  his  text. 

NOTE  115,  p.  340. 

The  term  "  idolaters "  I  would  not  be  supposed  to  censure,  though 
used  even  by  a  Puritan  against  a  Papist.  The  Papist  tells  us,  for  the 
thousandth  time,  that  he  never  worships,  in  the  highest  sense,  any  one 
but  God.  He  venerates  images,  as  we  do  our  grandfathers'  pictures, 
and  invokes  dead  saints,  just  as  we  invoke  living  ones  to  pray  for  us,  day 
after  day.  The  excuse  is  familiar  enough,  and  one  would  suppose  that 
an  infallible  church  might  be  consistent  enough  by  this  time.  But  be- 
hold such  a  prayer  as  this  uttered  by  a  devout  dying  Papist :  "  O  Mary, 
mother  of  grace  !  mother  of  mercy  !  protect  us  from  the  enemy,  and 
receive  us  at  the  hour  of  death  !"    (Rom.  Cath.  Mag.,  Feb.  1835,  p.  65.) 

But  resources  upon  such  a  subject  are  endless.  See  Palmer's  Letters 
to  Wiseman,  and  Home's  Mariolatry :  also  Dr.  Jarvis's  irrefutable  state- 
ments, in  his  "  No  Union  with  Rome."  Mr.  Palmer,  for  example,  one  of 
the  most  learned  theologians,  does  not  hesitate  to  declare  to  a  Romish 
Bishop,  "  The  Blessed  Virgin  is  authoritatively  set  before  your  souls,  in- 
stead of  the  Trinity."  (Letters  to  Wiseman,  p.  13,  of  L.  i.,  Eng.  ed.) 
Now  the  subject  of  worship  to  the  Virgin,  is  about  the  most  touchy, 
which  you  can  handle  with  a  Romanist.  Depreciate  that,  and  you  are 
a  heretic  of  the  blackest  dye.  Yet  here  is  a  clergyman,  of  as  high  repu- 
tation as  any  in  the  Church  of  England,  pledging  his  whole  credit  and 
learning  to  one  of  the  most  flagrant  statements  against  Popery,  which 


NOTES.  5]  5 

(as  Popery  feels  about  it)  human  pen  could  write.  And  meanwhile  he, 
and  half  his  church,  are  Papists  at  heart !  Faugh !  argument  is  wasted 
upon  mere  abuse  and  prejudice  ;  and  I  will  say  no  more. 

NOTE  116,  p.  346. 

I  transcribe  the  passage  alluded  to,  for  fear,  in  this  age  of  mutilated 
Bibles,  many  cannot  find  it. 

"  For  the  very  historical  truth  is,  that  upon  the  importunate  petitions 
of  the  Puritans,  at  his  Majesty's  coming  to  the  crown,  the  conference  at 
Hampton  Court  having  been  appointed  for  hearing  their  complaints,  when 
by  force  of  reason  they  were  put  from  all  other  grounds,  they  had  recourse 
at  last  to  this  shift,  that  they  could  not  with  good  conscience  subscribe  to 
the  Communion  Book,  since  it  maintained  the  Bible  as  it  was  there 
translated ;  which  was,  as  they  said,  a  most  corrupt  translation.  And 
although  this  was  judged  to  be  but  a  very  poor  and  empty  shift ;  yet  even 
hereupon  did  his  Majesty  begin  to  bethink  himself  of  the  good  that  might 
ensue  by  a  new  translation,  and  presently  after  gave  order  for  this  transla- 
tion which  is  now  presented  unto  thee.  Thus  much  to  satisfy  our  scru- 
pulous brethren." 

This,  and  the  whole  Address  of  the  Translators,  though  a  part  of  the 
furniture  of  the  original  translation  of  the  Bible,  in  1611,  is  deliberately 
cut  out  by  the  largest  society  for  publishing  the  English  Bible  in  these 
United  States ;  and  yet  Puritans  marvel  that  Episcopalians  are  "  scrupu- 
lous" about  sanctioning  its  work,  by  uniting  in  it !  Is  not  the  scrupu- 
losity rather  on  their  side  1 

By  the  way,  there  seems  to  be  much  difficulty  in  finding  a  cognomen 
for  Puritans,  at  the  present  day.  I  would  call  the  attention  of  Editors  to 
their  ancient  one,  "  our  scrupulous  brethren."  Old  Tom  Fuller,  however, 
who  was  somewhat  of  a  Puritan  himself,  does  not  hesitate  to  call  them 
"cripples  in  conformity."  (Fuller,  Ch.  Hist.  iii.  193.  Or,  v.  304,  Edit. 
1845.) 

NOTE  117,  p.  354. 

It  is  unspeakably  mortifying  to  a  Protestant,  to  see  the  Puritans  boast- 
ing so  grandiloquently  about  a  single  translation  of  the  Bible,  prepared 
by  one  of  <Aeir  missionaries  ;  when  the  Roman  Catholics  prepared  for  the 
use  of  the  different  tribes  of  Aborigines  in  Mexico,  the  enormous  amount 
of  twenty-four  dictionaries  and  forty-five  grammars !  (See  Thomas's 
Hist,  of  Printing,  i.  193.) 

I  add  to  this  note,  what  it  is  too  late  for  me  to  notice  in  the  text,  that 
if  any  reader  wishes  for  fuller  information  on  the  subject  of  the  Quebec 


516  NOTES. 

Act,  spoken  of  on  p.  343,  he  may  find  it  in  a  volume  edited  by  J.  Wright, 
from  the  notes  of  Sir  Henry  Cavendish,  Bart.,  8  vo.,  London,  1839. 

NOTE  118,  p,  3G7. 

The  number  necessary  for  the  foundation  of  a  Congregational  Church, 
i.  e.,  the  pillars  on  which  its  superstructure  should  be  raised,  is  often 
stated  as  seven.  But  necessity  requires  that  a  genuine  Congregationalist 
admit  that  two  are  sufficient. 

Some  of  their  writers  have  seen  and  owned  this.  The  Catechism 
which  Camfield  examined  in  1668  was  very  wary,  and  merely  said  that 
"  an  instituted  church"  was  "  a  society  of  persons  ;"  thus  dodging  the  de- 
licate difficulty  about  the  number.  (See  Camfield's  Exam.,  p.  100.)  In 
the  early  days  of  Massachusetts,  seven  seems  to  have  been  the  lowest 
canonical  number ;  for  Lechford  says  that  Master  Cotton  censured  the 
opinions  of  such  as  would  lower  this  number  to  two  or  three.  *  (Sav. 
Wint.  ii.,  161.  Bacon's  Hist.  Disc.  pp.  20,  24.  Mass.  H.  Coll.  3d 
ser.  iii.  88,  note.     Trumbull's  Hist.  Connect,  i.  284.) 

Our  modern  theorists  in  congregrational  polity  feel  the  force  of  logic, 
and  come  fairly  up  to  the  mark  ; — with  a  qualm  or  two  about  necessity  to 
be  sure  ;  but  still  they  do  in  terms  admit,  that  two  may  and  can  make  a 
church.  (See  Congregational  Catechism,  1844,  p.  84.)  This  is  less  can- 
did, however,  than  Punchard,  who  says  two  precisely,  and  tries  to  back 
himself  with  one  of  TertuUian's  inferences,  (not  statements  of  fact,) 
which  he  picked  up  out  of  Dr.  Campbell,  and  for  which  the  Doctor  was 
duly  castigated  in  Skinner's  Truth  and  Order,  Am.  Ed.  pp.  127,  128.  t 
This  shows,  by  the  way,  how  "  our  scrupulous  brethren"  treat  the  Fathers, 
when  they  can  press  them  into  service.  Their  reasonings  and  opinions 
if  they  subserve  their  purposes,  are  good  enough  ;  whereas  an  intelligent 
Churchman  treats  the  Fathers  as  he  does  other  men,  as  to  their  reasonings 
and  opinions,  and  defers  to  them  only  as  testifiers  to  catholic  or  universal 
matters  of  fact,  i.  e.,  as  to  what  the  Church  at  large,  in  their  day,  be- 
lieved and  practised. 

A  want  of  discrimination  on  this  point,  in  ignorant  or  prejudiced 
minds,  has  made  such  minds  suppose  that  Churchmen  swallowed  down, 
without  daring  to  question,  all  that  the  Fathers  have  said  or  written. — 

*  Baillie's  Dissuasive,  (pp.  107, 108,)  says  seven  and  three,  were  both  recognized 
by  the  English  Puritans.     Compare  Savage's  Winthrop,  i.  180. 

I  See  Punchard's  View  of  Congregationalism,  Salem,  1840,  p.  117  ;  and  for  an- 
other reference  about  the  perverted  passage  from  TertuUian,  see  Bishop  Kaye  on 
Tertullian,  Chap.  iv.  or  pp.  226,  227,  1st  edit,  or  p.  217,  2d  edit.  TertuUian  broached 
the  opinion  that  two  might  make  a  church,  after  he  himself  had  left  the  Church. 
No  wonder.    Any  heretic  would  do  so,  to  comfort  himself. 


NOTES.  517 

Why  will  men  be  so  perverse  ?  Is  it  not  easy  enough  to  make  a  distinc- 
tion between  an  autJior  and  a  testifier  7  between  a  man  advocating  his 
own  private  opinions,  and  the  same  man  telling  us,  as  a  witness,  what 
were  the  belief  and  the  practice  of  those  around  him  ?  A  Churchman 
thinks  so  ;  and  therefore  while  he  rejects  Tertullian's,  or  any  other 
uninspired  man's  logic,  he  receives  Tertullian's  record  of  catholic  facts,  as 
very  important.  Now  as  to  several  of  his  opinions,  Tertullian  was  no 
doubt  somewhat  Puritanical,  and  the  Church  Catholic  classed  him  accord- 
ingly with  the  heretics.*  As  to  his  facts,  he  most  clearly  represents  the 
Church  Catholic,  in  his  day,  as  Episcopal.  But  all  a  Congregationalist 
wants  is  his  opinions.  That  is,  he  can  pin  his  faith  upon  the  opinion  of  a 
solitary  individual,  and  let  go  that  Church's  wide-consenting  testimony, 
against  which  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail.  And  this  is  the  way, 
by  the  exercise  of  private  judgment,  to  escape  error,  when  error,  like  con- 
tagion, fills  the  air  we  breathe,  and  one  careless  day  amid  its  noxious  fumes 
may  poison  us  to  death  ! 

I  must  add  one  thing  more  to  this  note,  though  long  already.  From 
the  ^Congregational  theory  of  a  church,  it  follows,  that  the  union  or  volun- 
tary compact  of  two  or  more,  under  a  Christian  name,  constitutes  them 
church-members,  and  not  baptism  into  the  name  of  the  Holy  Trinity. 
Accordingly  we  find  the  Connecticut  Hooker  (the  rival  of  Cotton,  who 
had  to  leave  Massachusetts  to  give  Cotton  full  scope)  lays  down  with 
due  formality,  that  Baptism  cannot  make  us  members  of  the  Church. 
(Summe,  Pt.  i.  chaps.  4  and  5.  Also  Apology  for  Church  Covenant  of 
N.  Eug.  Churches,  1643,  p.  5.     Comp.  Antapologia,  p.  48.) 

Thus  we  see,  that  Congregationalism,  in  its  wilfulness,  strikes  at  any 
thing.  Our  Lord  told  his  apostles  to  make  disciples  of  all  nations,  (and,  by 
the  way,  not  of  all  the  adults  of  all  nationst — he  put  no  such  anabaptist 
comment  on  his  meaning,)  all  nations,  baptizing  them,  &c.  An  apostle 
afterwards  said,  that  as  many  as  {oaoL — whoever — those  who — again, 
not  adults  merely,)  have  been  baptized  into  Christ  have  put  on  Christ. 
(Gal.  iii.  27.) 

But  no,  says  the  Congregationalist,  making  a  covenant  together  con- 
stitutes men  Christ's  disciples,  and  by  this  covenant  do  they  put  Christ 
on.t 

*  A  pretty  fair  proof  that  Puritanism  was  then,  as  afterwards,  one  of  "  the  nov- 
elties which  disturb  our  peace." 

f  Does  a  nation  consist  of  adults  only,  or  of  men,  women  and  children  of  all 
ages?  And  besides,  if  it  is  wrong  to  baptize  children,  then  the  command  io  teach 
does  not  relate  to  them,  and  Baptists  should  eschew  all  Sunday  Schools,  &.c. 

X  To  meet  some  of  the  difficulties  on  this  subject,  Mr.  Stone,  of  Hartford,  Ct., 
published,  in  1652,  his  tract,  to  show  that  "  a  Congregational  church"  is  "  a  catholic 

23 


r>18  NOTES. 

NOTE  119,  p.  371. 

Punchard,  in  his  view  of  Congregationalism,  admits  in  form  the  valid- 
ity of  lay-ordination.  (See  p.  124.)  The  ordaining  councils  of  old  time 
were  obliged  to  admit  it,  however  unwelcome :  the  people  chose  to  have 
it  so,  and  doubtless  the  people  did  but  act  out  Congregational  theory  to 
the  full.  (See  Trumbull's  Connect,  i.  286.  And  comp.  Bacon's  Hist, 
Disc.  p.  294.)  And  to  show  what  strange  language  can  be  used,  even  by 
a  minister,  and  at  an  ordination,  I  quote,  as  a  specimen,  from  a  charge 
delivered  by  Dr.  Frothingham,  at  the  ordination  of  Mr.  Lunt  in  New 
York,  1828.  "  When  the  minister  of  this  new  church  was  invited  to 
assume  that  trust,  and  consented  to  assume  it,  he  became,  by  those  acts, 
a  minister  of  the  gospel  among  this  people.  We  have  not  come  here  to 
make  him  such.  He  was  so  before  we  came.  We  confer  no  new  privi- 
lege on  him.  We  bestow  no  new  gift  on  them.  We  lay  no  new  obliga- 
tions on  either.     The  covenant  is  between  themselves." 

NOTE  120,  p.  371. 

The  lengths  to  which  their  theory  of  development  led,  and  must  lead 
the  Puritans,  they  were  duly  advised  of.  For  example,  Edwards  asked 
them,  "  whether  a  great  gap  and  wide  door  be  not  left  open  for  schism 
upon  schism,  and  separation  upon  separation,  from  your  churches  to  the 
Brownists,  [he  says  thus,  for  at  this  time  they  had  begun  to  draw  off 
from  the  Brownists,  as  less  respectable,]  and  from  the  Brownists  to  the  Ana- 
baptists, and  so  on  in  infinitum  7"     (Antapologia,  p.  200.) 

And  such  language  had  a  curious  illustration.  The  question  came 
up,  practically,  in  Mr.  Lathrop's  society,  whether  the  baptisms  of  the 
Church  of  England  were  valid  ?  The  decision  was  (Speciatum  admissi, 
risum  teneatis  amici  ?)  that  "  at  present,"  they  would  not  say  they  were 
invalid !  and  even  that  decision  rent  in  twain  the  congregation  which 
made  it !  (Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  series,  i.  167,  168.)  Afterwards,  Mr. 
Bartlet,  who  was  minister  of  the  "  Congregational  Way"  at  Wapping,  in 
1646,  and  published  his  "  ModeU"in  1647,  claimed  some  credit  for  him- 
self because,  in  opposition  to  many,  he  did  believe  in  the  validity  of  the 
baptisms  of  the  Church  of  England  ;  and,  forsooth,  on  the  old  ground  of 
lay-baptism,  that  right  matter  and  words  are  all  which  are  necessary  to 
any  baptism,  and  the  administrator  is — any  body.  (Bartlet's  Cong.  Way, 
pp.  104, 105.)  It  must  be  a  precious  consolation  to  Churchmen  to  think 
that  their  baptisms  are  valid,  because  they  are  lay-baptisms !     However, 

visible  church."  I  have  not  space  to  quote  it ;  but  one  thing  the  reader  can  per- 
ceive, that  these  old  Puritans  had  none  of  that  puerile  horror  of  the  word  "  catholic," 
which  we  Bometimes  see  now. 


NOTES.  519 

Robinson,  the  putative  father  of  Congregationalism,  never  got  far  enough, 
be  it  remembered,  to  allow  them  so  much  as  this !  All  his  condescen- 
sion reached  participation  with  the  Church  of  England  in  prayers  and 
sermons  only  ;  from  her  sacraments  he  held  off  to  the  last.  And  now, 
verily,  his  posterity  think  it  a  horrible  thing  in  Episcopalians,  that  they 
do  not  recognize  his  sacraments,  begun  and  perpetuated  in  manifest 
schism  ;  and  that,  too,  simply  because  we  think  them  in  error  about  the 
polity  Christ  has  set  in  his  Church,  and  not  because  we  charge  them,  as 
Robinson  did  the  Church  of  England,  with  having  sacraments*  positively 
corrupt  and  anti-Christian.  We  doubt  their  heads :  Robinson  and  his 
followers  denounced  our  Church's  very  heart.  Can  it  be  surprising  that 
it  is  the  fashion  of  his  followers  to  doubt  of  nothing  sooner  than  of  the 
piety  of  an  Episcopalian — to  assume  nothing  with  more  ease,  than  to  sit 
in  judgment  on  his  soul  and  attack  his  motives,  as  if  they  were  discerners 
of  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the  heart — to  come  to  no  conclusion  with 
more  speed  or  satisfaction,  than  that  he  (most  especially  if  unfortunate 
enough  to  be  called  a  high-churchman)  is  to  be  cast  out  of  the  pale  of 
charity,  and  to  be  withstood  as  deserving  of  nothing  but  the  buffetings 
of  Satan? 

NOTE  121,  p.  372. 

Justice  Story  expresses  this  in  captivating  language:  "  Their  precept, 
like  their  example,  speaking  as  it  were  from  their  sepulchres,  is,  to  follow 
truth  now,  not  as  they  saw  it,  but  as  we  see  it,  fearlessly  and  faithfully." 
(Story's  Misc.,  p.  61.)  I  wish  I  could  give  such  apparently  philanthropic 
counsel  a  good  paternity  ;  but  I  am  afraid  I  must  trace  it  to  some  of  the 
worst  of  those  puritanically  inclined,  about  the  period  of  the  Reformation. 
One  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  German  sectaries,  according  to  Dugdale, 
was,  that  that  was  not  Divine  truth  which  lay  upon  the  pages  of  the 
Bible,  but  which  those  pages  helped  our  own  minds  to  see.  In  other 
words,  the  very  Bible  itself  must  be  distilled  through  the  alembic  of  our 
understandings,  before  its  specific  truths  could  appear.  Its  written  decla- 
rations were  nothing.  Dugdale,  in  his  "  Short  View,"  thus  describes  the 
matter.  "  The  truth,  said  they,  was,  (that  when  the  word  is  said  to  en- 
gender faith  in  the  heart,  and  to  convert  the  soul  of  man,  or  to  work  any 
such  spiritual  divine  effect,)  these  speeches  are  not  thereunto  appliable, 
as  it  is  read  and  preached,  but  as  it  is  engrafted  in  us  by  the  power  of  the 
Holy  Ghost."     (Dugdale,  p.  3.)     And  what  seems  not  a  little  curious,  Ap. 

*  Marriages  too.  Edwards  charges  one  of  the  very  writers  of  the  "  Apologeti- 
call  Narration,"  with  going  over  to  Holland  to  be  married  by  a  magistrate,  because 
Robinson's  system  required  it.  So  the  Puritans  would  have  bastardized  England ! ! 
— Aiilapologia,  p.  22. 


520  NOTES. 

Laud  noticed  a  similar  thing  in  the  Puritans  of  his  day ;  and  said  that 
this  was  one  particular,  among  others,  wherein  they  resembled  the  Papists. 
(Conference  with  Fisher,  new  edit.  p.  81.) 

Unquestionably  with  the  Puritans  that  only  was  truth  which  appeared 
to  be  truth  to  them  ;  and  there  was  no  such  thing  whatever  as  objective 
truth,  or  truth  in  the  abstract.  And  one  fruit  of  this  appeared  in  the 
"  Apologeticall  Narration,"  which  fell  like  a  bomb  into  the  midst  of  the 
Westminster  Assembly,  Another  shape  of  it  was  a  refusal  to  have  the 
Bible  read  in  the  congregation,  unless  expounded  ;  for  read,  merely,  it 
was  not  the  Bible.*  And  finally.  Fox  and  the  Quakers  carried  this  to 
perfection,  by  making  every  thing  dependent  on  the  light  within. 

NOTE  122,  p.  378. 

One  proof  of  this  is  the  necessity  of  some  publications  of  the  day,  to 
try  to  reconcile  them,  I  have  before  me,  e.g.  an  octavo  pamphlet  of 
nearly  100  pages,  published  in  1648,  the  benevolent  aim  of  which  was, 
"  The  reconcilement  of  that  long  debated  and  much  lamented  difference, 
between  the  godly  Presbyterians  and  the  godly  Independents,  about 
Church  Government."  But  for  all  their  godliness,  these  Presbyterians 
and  Independents  fought  on,  and  fought  it  out,  to  the  bitter  end. 

I  am  willing,  however,  to  close  this  note  with  the  testimony  of  a 
Presbyterian  contemporary.  He  solemnly  declares,  that  the  Presbyterians 
were  content  for  an  accommodation  "  in  just  terms  ;"  but,  he  adds,  "  the 
Independents  always  scorned  it."  (Baillie's  Letters,  tfcc,  ii.  179.)  It  is 
not  very  hard  to  believe  this  ;  for  Puritan-Protestants,  just  like  their 
coimterparts,  Puritan-Papists,t  have  always  found  it  one  of  the  hardest 
of  tasks  to  agree  to  disagree,  i.  e.  to  entertain  mutual  tolerance  for  an 
opponent.  No,  says  the  Puritan  ;  No,  says  the  Inquisitor  ;  I  can  make 
such  an  agreement  with  nobody.  You  must  come  up  to  my  standard  in 
every  thing  ;  or — or — I'll  make  you. 

NOTE  123,  p.  381. 

There  was  another  sufferer  put  to  death  with  Mr.  Love,  whom  I  pre- 
sume was  a  Presbyterian,  but  I  can  find  no  particular  account  of  him. 
His  name  was  Gibbons  ;  and  from  an  allusion  to  him  on  p.  iv,  of  the 
preface  to  Love's  sermons,  republished  in  1807,  I  should  suppose  him  to 
have  been  a  Presbyterian  minister.  If  so,  then  we  have  three  Presbyte- 
rian martyrs  instead  of  two, 

*  Maddox's  Vindication,  p.  185. 

t  This  term  was  by  no  means  singular  among  our  old  divines.  I  have  referred 
in  Note  36,  to  some  instances  :  I  now  give  another. — Proceedings  at  Perth,  London, 
1621,  Pt.  iii.  p.  87. 


NOTES.  521 

NOTE  124,  p.  399.  (Second  line  of  the  foot  notes.) 
The  Hon.  R.  C.  Winthrop,  in  his  Address  before  the  New  England 
Society  in  1839,  cannot  forbear  giving  Virginia  a  severe  side-cut  for  her 
slave-trade.*  (See  p.  52.)  Surely  the  recollection  of  Indians  sold  and 
negroes  bought  into  slavery,  by  the  Puritan  Colony  of  Massachusetts, 
and  that  as  early  as  1637,  (Felt's  Salem,  p.  109,)  w^hen  she  v^^as  at  the 
height  of  her  Puritan  glory,  and  had  done  nothing  towards  her  great 
chartered  duty  of  converting  the  savages,  ought  to  make  even  as  earnest 
advocates  of  herself  as  we  know  the  Bay  State  habitually  supplies,  some- 
what cautious  about  castigation  of  a  sister  government.  More  espe- 
cially, when  we  know  that  this  poor  denounced  Virginia  commenced  her 
system  with  universal  suffrage,  while  Massachusetts,  with  a  temper 
worthy  the  age  of  Hildebrand  himself,  would  tolerate  no  one  as  a  free- 
man who  would  not  profess  and  maintain  Puritanism  in  its  whole  length 
and  breadth.  And  again,  too,  when  we  know  that  the  Colony  of  Vir- 
ginia remonstrated  against  the  slave-trade  with  the  Mother-Country, 
and  besought  her  to  arrest  it :  to  the  shame  of  Britain  be  it  spoken, 
wholly  in  vain  !     (See  Walsh's  Appeal,  Sect.  ix.  or  p.  317.)t 

In  this  step,  I  am  informed  that  Virginia  was  not  alone — that  South 
Carolina  e.  g.  did  the  same  thing,  and  with  like  success.  Walsh  de- 
clares, that  Virginia's  efforts  in  this  matter  began  as  far  back  as  1662 — 
when,  perhaps,  I  add.  New  England  was  doing,  what  she  certainly  did 
afterwards,  import  slaves  into  our  southern  states,  and  sell  them  there  ! 
God  forbid  that  I  should  be,  or  seem  to  be,  an  advocate  for  slavery,  which 
I  account  an  awful  curse.  But  when  I  see  northerners  abusing  southern- 
ers for  its  existence  among  them,  I  blush  for  shame  ;  for  I  am  sadly  aware 
that  if  oMr  vessels  had  not  imported  and  sold  slaves  into  southern  states,* 
there  would  have  been  many,  very  many  fewer  slaves  there,  and  by  this 
time,  possibly,  they  might  have  given  all  their  freedom.  Now,  for  the 
burden  thrown  upon  them  by  northern  hands,  they  must  wait  a  tedious 
time.  But  of  all  who  should  be  the  last  to  complain,  and  who  should  have 
longest  patience  with  them,  are  New  Englanders  and  their  descendants. 

*  Massachusetts  was  ready  enough  to  catch  Virginia's  runaway  slaves  in  old 
times,  whatever  she  may  do  now. — See  Gov.  Berkley's  Letter.  Hutchinson's  Coll. 
pp.  136,  137. 

t  Can  any  such  bold  remonstrance  be  found  among  the  annals  of  Massachusetts  ? 
Belknap,  who  says  all  he  can,  speaks  of  none. — Mass.  H.  Coll.  1st  ser.  iv.  195,6. 

I  Mass.  H.  Coll.  1st  ser.  iv.  197,  admits  this;  and  on  the  next  page  it  is  shown, 
with  what  a  true  Puritan  conscience,  some  of  the  New  Englanders  treated  the  subject 
of  slavery.  They  declaimed  against  the  slave-trade  with  all  their  mignt;  yet,  when 
slaves  were  brought  to  their  doors,  actually  bought  them  and  jiistified  their  posses- 
sion of  them.  Abraham,  &c.,  they  said,  had  slaves,  and  so  might  they  have.  Here 
we  have  doctrine^  aud  there  practice ! 

23* 


522  NOTES. 

NOTE  125,  p.  399. 

"One  professed  design,"  says  Hutchinson,  "  of  the  colony  charter, 
was  the  gospelizing  the  natives.  The  long  neglect  of  any  attempts 
this  icay  cannot  be  excused.  The  Indians  themselves  asked,  how  it 
happened,  if  Christianity  was  of  such  importance,  that  for  six  and  twenty 
years  together  th^  English  had  said  nothing  to  them  about  it."  (Hutch. 
Hist.  i.  150.)  This  brings  in  "  the  Plymouthians"  also  guilty ;  for  this 
six  and  twenty  years  runs  back  to  1620,  the  date  of  their  settlement. 

The  whole  then  goes  to  show,  that  stupid  as  the  Indians  were,  inacces- 
sible by  Christian  ideas  according  to  Puritan  doctrine,  they  had  wit 
enough  to  see  into  and  condemn  a  most  flagrant  Puritan  inconsistency. 
No  marvel  then  that  the  Puritans  thought  them  (as  the  Presbyterian 
Mr.  Stone  tells  us)  the  agents  and  familiars  of  the  Devil,  and  therefore 
fit  for  nothing  but  destruction.     (See  Stone's  Brant,  Pref.  p.  xv.) 

NOTE  126,  p.  408.     (Sixth  line  of  the  foot  notes.) 

I  am  quite  willing  to  suppose  that  Gov.  Winslow  stated  what  he  be- 
lieved, (or,  rather,  to  follow  his  own  language,)  thought  to  be  true.  Yet, 
if  the  Indians  were  always  compensated  for  every  foot  of  their  territory, 
how  comes  it  that  Seipican,  or  Rochester,  in  Massachusetts,  is  given 
away  by  Plymouth  in  1638,  while  in  1682,  after  the  sale  of  Rochester,  a 
native  sets  up  a  claim  to  it,  proves  it,  and  has  his  claim  allowed  ?  (See 
Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  2d  ser.  iv.  258,  265.)  And  further,  take  Gov.  Wins- 
low's  testimony  at  the  utmost :  he  says,  with  unlucky  emphasis,  "  this  col- 
ony ;"  implying  that  the  sister  colony  did  otherwise.  So  his  testimony 
condemns  Massachusetts,  at  all  events.  Moreover,  it  is  equivocal  in  any 
sense.  It  says  "  I  think,"  and  not  "  I  am  sure."  It  says  lands  were 
always  bought "  before  these  present  troubles."  But  when  did  they  begin  ? 
There's  the  rub.  Some  would  say,  Almost  as  soon  as  Puritan  feet 
ouched  Indian  soil.  So  Mr.  Young  may  make  the  most  of  his  friend 
Winslow's  testimony,  in  welcome.  He  must  pardon  me  for  w^eighing 
Puritan  language  with  precision  :  experientia  docei. 

NOTE  127,  p.  411. 

No  sooner,  however,  do  we  get  through  the  purchase  of  Concord,  than 
we  find  the  General  Court  giving  away  plantations  "  adjoining  Concord," 
as  Shattuck  says,  with  entire  freedom,  as  if  the  rest  of  the  country 
were  theirs  exclusively.*     How  could  this  be  lawfully  done  ?     (Shattuck's 

*  Even  sucli  grants  could  be  refused  to  those   who  favored  a  heretic  like  Roger 
Williams. — Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st  ser.  viii.  2. 


NOTES.  523 

Concord,  pp.  13, 14.)  There  does  not  appear  any  evidence  to  show,  that 
these  new  grantees  paid  or  offered  to  pay  for  the  soil ;  and  indeed  Shat- 
tuck  is  obliged  to  admit  that  the  grantees  of  Concord  itself  were  not  in 
any  hurry  to  purchase  or  pay  for  their  land,  (p.  6.) — in  any  more  hurry, 
e.  g.  than  the  General  Court  was  to  pay  for  its  gunpowder.  (Sav.  Wint. 
ii.  211.)  Doubtless,  however,  they  paid  in  time  to  prevent  such  a  quarrel 
as  happened  in  1631  about  Indian  purchases;  and  the  recollection  of 
which  might  have  quickened  action  in  1636.  (See  Mather's  Ind.  Tbls., 
p.  23,  for  the  dispute.) 

Perhaps  I  ought  to  add,  that  Shattuck's  theory  is,  that  the  General 
Court  granted  a  mere  permission  to  settle.  (P.  4.)  But  their  action 
reads  very  differently.  They  granted  not  a  mere  permission  to  settle, 
but  a  precise  number  of  acres,  e.  g.,  as  on  p.  14,  such  a  curiously  specific 
number  as  533.*  The  proper  way  would  have  been  to  begin  at  the  other 
end — ask  permission  of  the  natives,  buy  their  property,  and  then  go  to 
the  Legislature  to  confirm  the  bargain.  It  is  a  curious  way  to  purchase 
a  man's  property,  to  squat  upon  it,  as  we  now  say,  and  then  compel  him 
to  sell  it — if  we  like  it. 

Finally,  purchasing  in  one  case  condemns  the  Puritans  for  not  pur- 
chasing in  every  other.  A  solitary  purchase  was  a  tacit,  yet  complete 
recognition  of  Indian  title  to  the  soil ;  and  folios  of  such  logic  as  Higgin- 
son's  and  Bulkley's  could  not  mend  the  matter  afterwards.  (For  Hig- 
ginson's,  see  Hutch.  Coll.  p.  30.  For  Bulkley's,  see  Mass.  Hist.  Coll.  1st 
ser.  iv.J159.) 

NOTE  128,  p.  414. 

An  authority  from  Benedict's  Baptists  speaks  volumes  upon  this  sub- 
ject. It  shows  how  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  conspired  to  put 
Rhode  Island  down,  on  account  of  the  religious  freedom  indulged  there  ; 
and  when  they  could  not  accomplish  their  aims  otherwise,  employed  the 
Indian  tomahawk  and  scalping  knife  to  endeavor  to  drive  them  through. 
"  Connecticut  and  Massachusetts,  on  either  side  of  them,  were  now  making 
strong  exertions  to  enforce  their  religious  laws,  and  could  not  endure  the 
maxims  of  this  little  colony,  which  were  a  tacit  and  standing  condemna- 
tion of  their  bigotry  and  intolerance.  They  therefore  stretched  their 
ines,  if  possible,  to  swallow  up  the  little  State,  and  Massachusetts  actu- 
ally took  possession  of  a  large  share  of  it  on  one  side,  and  Connecticut  on 

*  Compare  Felt's  Ipswich,  pp.  14,  15. — Nay,  the  poor  Indians  themselves  had  to 
apply  to  the  Legislature  just  like  any  other  newjcomers  I — Allen's  Chelmsford,  pp. 
8,  9.  This  proves  incontestably  that  the  Legislature  looked  upon  itself,  as  the  sole 
proprietor  of  the  soil. 


524  NOTES. 

the  other ;  but  failing  of  their  design  on  this  plan,  they  encouraged  the 
Indians  to  harass  them  to  the  loss  of  80  or  100  pounds  a- year ;  they 
refused  to  let  them  have  ammunition  for  their  money,  when  in  imminent 
danger ;  they  fomented  divisions  among  them,  and  encouraged  their  sub- 
jects to  refuse  obedience  to  their  authority  ;  they  finally  labored  hard,  after 
they  could  not  dismember  the  colony,  to  gain  a  party  within  its  bounds 
of  sufficient  strength  to  outvote  them  in  their  elections,  and  establish 
among  them  their  abominable  system  of  parish  worship  and  parish  taxes." 
(Benedict,  i.  466.) 

So,  then,  the  Puritans  could  use  the  Indians  against  others  without 
scruple  ;  but  when  an  Indian  weapon  was  turned  against  themselves, 
they  could,  as  the  poor  Pequots  found  out,  exterminate  a  nation.  Had 
the  Pequots  dismembered  Rhode  Island,  they  might  have  founded  a 
kingdom  upon  its  ruins,  till — till — the  Puritans  wanted  it  for  themselves. 
For  though  Indians  could  be  used  against  those  not  Puritans,  to  subju- 
gate them  to  the  faith  ;  when  that  was  done,  they  must  bow  down  in 
turn,  or  follow  the  same  destiny.  Roger  Williams  says  that  when  he 
was  going  to  England,  he  was  importuned  by  the  Narragansett  sachems 
to  appeal  in  their  behalf  "  to  the  high  sachems  of  England,  that  they 
might  not  be  forced  from  their  religion,  and  for  not  changing  their  reli- 
gion be  invaded  by  war  ;  for  they  said  they  were  daily  visited  with  threat- 
enings  by  Indians  that  came  from  about  the  Massachusetts,  that  if  they 
would  not  pray,  they  should  be  destroyed  by  war."  (R.  1.  Hist.  Coll. 
iii.  154.)  So  Puritanism  understood  how  to  dragoon  heretics  into  the 
faith,  or  seize  upon  their  possessions,  as  well  as  the  papistical  Louis  XIV. 

NOTE  129,  p.  418. 
It  is  irresistibly  amusing  to  see  how  the  Puritans  copied  England  in 
bad  things,  though  all  the  while  bitterly  blaming  her.  They  ventured  a 
revolution,  because  taxed  without  their  own  consent ;  but  in  Note  91,  it 
will  be  seen  they  adopted  such  a  principle  as  quite  right  for  them.  They 
thought  it  vast  indignity  for  the  English  to  call  us  rebels.  But  so  sure  as 
an  Indian,  after  being  wheedled  into  an  act  of  which  he  knew  nothing  of 
the  import,  i.  e.  a  pro  forma  declaration  of  allegiance  to  the  British 
Crown,)*  dared  to  act  contrary  to  loyally,  he  was  a  rebel  of  most  malig- 
nant heinousness,  and  if  he  escaped  with  life  and  servile  bondage  might 
think  himself  full  fortunate.     (Mass.  H.  Coll.  1st  ser.  iv.  196.) 

*  Here  is  a  specimen.  A  Puritan  governor  tells  a  sachem,  that  the  King  is  his 
friend  and  ally.  The  Indian  replies  to  the  compliment,  that  lie  was  the  King's  sub. 
jcct.  Alas,  poor  Red  Man  I  that  had  to  go  down  in  black  and  white.— Hulchiasou's 
Hist.  i.  252. 


NOTES.  525 

And,  now,  for  the  result  of  such  severity.  Some  of  these  Indians 
escaped  from  servile  bondage,  returned,  and  helped  to  provoke  wars  and 
glut  their  revenge.  (Same  vol.  and  page.)  But  then  I  suppose  we  must 
believe,  with  Dr.  Bacon,  that  such  a  war,  on  the  part  of  the  Puritans,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  hapless  Pequots,  is  "  a  war  as  righteous  as  ever  was 
waged."  (Bacon's  Hist.  Disc.  p.  330.)  Had  not  Puritan  advocates 
better  be  more  chary  of  the  reputation  of  the  days  of  '76?  if  a  war 
against  rebels  is  as  righteous  as  any,  monarchical  tories  will  make  them 
a  low  bow  for  such  exquisite  orthodoxy.* 

NOTE  130,  p.  420. 

Dr.  Holmes,  in  his  Annals,  seems  vexed  with  the  Hon.  Mr.  Savage, 
for  censuring  so  freely  the  execution  of  Miantonimoh.  He  calls  his  lan- 
guage the  pleading  of  a  mere  advocate,  and  refers  to  Judge  Davis's,  as 
that  of  a  ^M^g^e.  (Annals,  i.  272.)  Indeed,  good  Doctor,  and  in  your 
own  is  there  nothing  of  the  Puritan  parson  ?  for  you  forget,  entirely,  to 
mention  the  instrumentality  of  the  Elders  in  the  awful  matter. 

But  take  it,  even  with  Dr.  H.'s  favorite  reference,  the  reader  cannot 
but  be  shocked,  to  see  a  professed  minister  of  the  Gospel  sanctioning  a 
dastardly  assassination.  "  If,"  says  Judge  Davis,  (and  there  is  vast  em- 
phasis in  the  if  of  the  learned  jurist — he  would  not  have  left  the  thing 
so  open  could  he  have  helped  it,)  "  If  sad  necessity  required  the  sacrifice, 
there  seems  a  revolting  obliquity  in  the  manner  of  its  accomplishment." 
(Davis's  Morton,  p.  234,  Note.)  How  could  Judge  D.  call  it  less  than 
shocking,  when,  like  the  familiars  of  the  Inquisition,  they  kept  their  hor- 
rid purpose  "  a  profound  secret  1"     (Trumbull's  Connect,  i.  134.) 

It  cannot  be  astonishing  that  Puritan  parsons  should  countenance  the 
most  shocking  obliquities  in  1643,  if  one  of  their  successors  can  coolly 
defend  such  obliquities  in  1829. 

NOTE  131,  p.  425.     (Last  line  of  the  footnotes.) 

Dr.  Trumbull's  language  does  not  want  strength,  and  yet  says  Dr. 
D  wight,  as  if  any  thing  like  it  must  be  utter  slander,  "  The  annals  of  the 
world  cannot  furnish  a  single  instance,  in  which  a  nation,  or  any  other 

*  Rebellion  against  a  Puritan  theocracy  is  treason  against  God  as  well  as  man,  as 
we  have  seen.  But  only  let  the  Puritans  get  into  power,  and  even  such  a  violent 
writer  as  Dr.  Mayhew  says,  "  government  is  sacred,  and  not  to  be  trifled  with." — See 
his  furious  philippic  preached  against  King  Charles  I.'s  day,  which  was  thought 
worthy  of  introduction  into  the  "  Pillars  of  Priestcraft  and  Orthodoxy  Shaken,"  of 
the  notorious  Richard  Baron — a  man  who  abandoned  even  the  Puritanic  ministry  in 
disgust.    For  the  quoted  words,  see  Pillars,  &c.,  vol.  ii.  336. 


52C  NOTES. 

body  politic,  has  treated  its  allies  or  its  subjects  either  with  more  justice 
or  more  humanity,  than  the  New  England  Colonists  treated  these  peo- 
ple," i.  e.  the  Aborigines.  .(Dwight's  Travels,  i.  167.)  More  justice  or 
more  humanity  !  why,  (not  to  repeat  the  terrible  testimony  already 
given,)  as  Winthrop  admits,  the  English,  aye  the  Puritan  English,  could 
put  a  poor  prisoner,  taken  by  his  fellow-savages,  to  the  torture :  thus 
imitating  their  most  fiend-like  practice  ;  and,  too,  on  the  express  plea  of 
revenge  for  similar  deeds  !  (Sav.  Wint.  i.  223.)  Their  soldiers,  taught 
under  the  auspices  of  Puritan  chaplains,  could  talk  of  shooting  an  Indian 
as  sportively  as  of  shooting  "  a  black  duck."  (Hutchinson's  Hist.  ii.  p, 
267.)  Puritan  parsons  at  home  could  say  to  the  soldiers,  to  make  them 
fiercer,  (as  Monks  have  said  to  Papists  about  to  battle  with  heretics,)  that 
the  "  Indians  should  be  bread  for  them."  (Mather's  Troubles,  p.  42.) 
And  all  this  doubtless,  because,  as  an  honest  Presbyterian  tells  us,  the 
Indians  were  believed  to  be  the  agents  and  familiars  of  the  prince  of 
darkness.     (Stone's  Brant.  Pref.  p.  xv.)  * 

And  still  are  we  to  be  told,  that  more  justice  or  more  humanity  can- 
not be  found  in  "  the  annals  of  the  world,"  than  are  to  be  found  in  the 
annals  of  Puritan  treatment  of  the  Aborigines!  Oh,  if  so,  then  all  I  have 
to  say  is,  that  divines  of  Dr.  Dwight's  school  need  not  trouble  themselves 
to  preach  of  a  future  place  of  woe  :  if  this  whole  world,  in  all  its  history, 
cannot  produce  aught  more  of  comfort  than  the  Aborigines  experienced 
at  Puritan  hands,  it  is  sufficiently  a  Pandemonium  already,  to  render  a 
sadder  place  unnecessary. 

NOTE  132,  p.  427. 

In  allusion  to  the  sentiment  at  the  close,  perhaps  I  cannot  do  better 
than  quote  Richard  Baxter's  most  pertinent  rebuke  to  the  Puritans,  for 
their  harsh  and  wholesale  way  of  condemning  Churchmen  in  the  gross, 
and  upon  mere  suspicion,  in  the  exercise  of  their  all-discerning  and  infal- 
lible private  judgment.  The  passage,  too,  is  a  fair  and  incidental  illus- 
tration of  a  Churchman's  way  of  judging,  i.  e.  upon  evidence. 

"  You  never  try  them,  nor  hear  them  speak  for  themselves,  nor  exam- 
ine any  witnesses  publicly  agauist  them,  nor  allow  them  any  church- 
justice  ;  but  avoid  their  communion,  [another  proof,  by  the  way,  that  they 
disowned  the  sacraments  of  Episcopalians,]  upon  reports  or  pretence  of 
private  knowledge.  They  judge  you  personally,  one  by  one.  You  con- 
demn whole  parishes  in  the  lu7np,  unheard.    They  condemn  you  as  for  a 

*  "  Dogs,  caitiffs,  niiscreaats,  and  hell-hounds,"  says  Belknap,  "  are  the  politest 
names  given  them  by  sonic  writers."  He  alludes  to  such  as  Hubbard  and  Mather  3 
whose  terrific  animosity  against  the  Indians  he  cannot  put  up  with,  for  all  their  Pu- 
ritanism.—Belknap's  N.  Hamp.  i.  67. 


NOTES.  527 

positive  crime.  But  you  condemn  them  without  charging  any  one  crime 
upon  them,  because  they  have  not  yet  given  you  a  satisfying  proof  of 
their  godUness."  (Baxter's  Cure  of  Church  Divisions,  2d  edit.  1670.  p. 
255.     And  with  Baxter's  own  itaUcs.) 

When  I  read  in  Clement  Walker,  that  one  of  the  six  principles 
of  the  Puritan-Independents*  was,  "  That  if  a  man  be  questioned  for  any 
crime,  though  his  judges  have  neither  competent  witnesses,  proofs,  nor 
evidence  of  his  guiltiness,  yet  if  they  think  in  their  conscience  he  is  guilty, 
they  may  condemn  him  out  of  the  testimony  of  their  own  private  con- 
science"— when,  I  say,  I  read  this,  I  thought  Mr.  Walker,  though  es- 
teemed highly  by  his  Presbyterian  brethren,  might  have  strained  a  point 
a  little.  But  as  Baxter,  whose  name  is  almost  a  Puritan  watchword, 
sustains  him,  I  must  suppose  his  judgment  correct. 

And  after  all,  what  does  Baxter  censure,  and  what  Walker,  save  but 
what  we  now  see,  only  in  a  form  less  dangerous  according  to  the  circum- 
stances of  our  times,  viz.,  the  hasty  and  sweeping  judgment  of  Puritans 
upon  the  piety,  i.  e.  the  secret  state  of  the  souls  of  those  who  differ 
from  them :  a  judgment  founded,  not  upon  facts,  but  upon  their  own 
bare  suspicions.!  And  how  common  this  is,  all  of  moderate  acquaintance 
with  them  must  know.  They  are  the  people :  they  only  understand  and 
exemplify  the  religion  of  the  heart.  Papists  and  Churchmen,  on  the  one 
side,  are  believers  in  mere  forms ;  while  Socinians  and  Universalists,  on 
the  other,  are  believers  in  false  doctrines.  They  only  are  right  in  the 
sight  of  God ;  and  for  any  one  who  dares  to  differ  from  them,  there  is  a 
shake  of  the  head,  and  an  uprolling  of  the  eye,  or  a  shrug,  or  an  alas !  and 
your  piety,  oh,  it  becomes,  Hke  the  bishops  with  Milton,  the  basest  and 
the  lowermost  of  all  things. 

And  to  wind  up  this  description,  how  like  to  the  Papist,  though  he 
never  suspects  it,  is  the  Puritan  in  this  very  thing !  The  Papist  de- 
nounces you  for  a  heretic,  without  a  qualm  and  without  a  pause,  because 
he  is  infallible.  The  Puritan  denounces  you  as  destitute  of  piety,  with 
as  little  compunction  and  as  little  hesitancy,  because  he,  too,  is  no  more 
liable  to  error.  Both  judgments  are  the  most  awful  which  can  be  pro- 
nounced upon  a  fellow-creature  ;  and  yet  the  Papist  on  one  side  of  us, 
and  the  Puritan  on  the  other,  will  show  us  that  they  can  be  pronounced 
with  a  feariessness,  which  Gabriel  the  archangel— the  highest  perhaps  of 
created  names — would  recoil  from  with  a  shudder. 

*  Walker's  Independency,  Pt.  iii.  p.  23. 

t  See  this  practically  admitted  by  Milton  ;  who  undertakes  to  prove,  that  Bishop 
Juxon  and  Charles  I.  were  hypocrites,  not  by  facts,  but  "  by  arguments  j"  i.  e.  by  ar- 
guing facts  into  a  shape  to  suit  himself.— Prose  Works,  p.  939. 


ERRATA. 

In  a  work  so  difficult  to  print,  in  consequence  of  the  numerous  references,  dates, 
and  quotations,  it  is  hoped  the  reader  will  excuse  the  following  errata — and  others, 
should  he  discover  them. 

Page    66,  2d  line  of  the  foot  notes,  for  1663  read  1633. 

82,  8th  line  from  bottom  of  text,  for  "  finally"  read  "  formally." 
86,  9th  line  from  top,  for  "  whome"  read  "  whom." 
202,  18th  line  from  top,  the  word  "  for"  omitted. 
274,  10th  line  of  the  foot  notes,  for  "  Wells"  read  "  Weld." 
348,  4th  line  of  the  foot  notes,  for  "  More's"  read  "  Moore's." 
389,  1st  line  of  foot  notes,  for  231  read  331. 
396,  bottom  line,  for  "  and"  read  "  of." 


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